FLORIDA

Since Wednesday, March 12, natural gas spot prices eased at virtually all markets in the Lower 48 States. Prices at the Henry Hub fell 58 cents per million Btu (MMBtu), or about 6 percent, to $9.11 per MMBtu.

The weak dollar is bringing western art abroad

Countdown began on Saturday at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida toward Tuesday's launch of the Space Endeavour, less than three weeks after the last shuttle flight.

U.S. stocks dropped to an 18-month low on Tuesday , after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke urged banks to write down more mortgage debts. Financial shares led indexes to fall while oil and gold dropped from previous records.

Fidel Castro's withdrawal from power in Cuba could have sparked a crisis for its communist leaders, but detailed planning and water-tight secrecy ensured a stable succession. When Raul Castro was installed as Cuba's first new leader in half a century on Sunday, taking over from his ailing brother, hardly a ripple was felt in the country of 11 million people, and nobody was cheering in the streets of the anti-Castro exile stronghold of Miami.

Web search company Google Inc is testing in the United States an online storage bank where individuals can store and access their medical records, the company said on Thursday. Just last week, Google said it was teaming up with the Cleveland Clinic, a leading academic medical center, to test an exchange of medical data that Google says will put the patient in charge of his own records.

Many parts of southern Florida were blacked out on Tuesday afternoon, leaving two to three million residents without electricity.

U.S. home foreclosures for January increased 57 percent from a year earlier, but the pace at least temporarily subsided in response to private and government efforts to help homeowners, RealtyTrac said.

The distressed housing market should benefit from bargain prices but tighter lending will curtail the chance of a boom.

Atlantis space shuttle was launched on Thursday from its seaside Florida launch pad, at about 2:45 p.m., making the mission successful after a two failed attempts last year in December and uncertainty of the weather before the launch that would have halted the mission for the third time.

The Atlantis space shuttle is set for launching later today after NASA announced it had finished all the preparations for the mission to deliver Europe's first permanent space laboratory to the International Space Station.

President Bush, standing before Congress one last time, urged the nation Monday night to persevere against gnawing fears of recession and stay patient with the long, grinding war in Iraq. He pressed Congress to quickly pass a plan to rescue the economy. We can all see that growth is slowing, Bush said in a blunt acknowledgment of rising food and gas prices, increasing unemployment and turmoil in the housing and financial markets.

Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM) on Wednesday revealed that it acquired a carriage for its MGM HD Channel on Verizon's FiOS TV service enabling it to transfer feature film hits from the MGM library to Verizon FiOS TV subscriber households in full high definition.

Billionaire Joseph Lewis disclosed in a regulatory filing on Wednesday that he has increased his stake in hard-hit investment bank Bear Stearns Cos to 9.57 percent.

Three workers died and five were injured on Wednesday following an explosion at a chemical plant in Jacksonville, Florida.

Retail shares on Wednesday rose after the Federal Reserve revealed new plans to inject cash into money markets as a way to reduce stress in financial markets.

Home improvement retailer Home Depot Inc is closing three call centers that aid its home services business, cutting about 950 jobs, a spokesman said on Tuesday.

NASA has cleared the way for the Atlantis shuttle launch next week on a mission to equip the space station with a new science lab.

Housing and credit troubles took more of a toll on the U.S. economy as prices on pre-owned single-family homes tumbled in the third quarter and consumer confidence in November sank to a two-year low, reports on Tuesday showed.

As banks work to clean up some of the subprime mortgage mess, they are finding new obstacles in unraveling the massive paper trail used to pool individual loans into mortgage-backed securities.

US President Bush announced steps to tackle air traffic congestion and reduce passenger delays over the Thanksgiving period starting late next week, the White House said on Thursday.