Washington - US legislators worked behind closed doors through Saturday seeking agreement on a US finance rescue plan as a weakened US President George W Bush wrestled with a revolt from within his own Republican ranks on a tense Capitol Hill.

House of Representative Republicans continued to block approval of the mammoth 700-billion-dollar liferaft for the mortgage-debt-gone- bad crisis that has drained credit lines dry and is spreading financial troubles abroad.

Washington - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Friday endorsed President George W Bush's 700-billion-dollar plan designed to rescue the US financial sector and stave off further turmoil in global markets.

"Britain supports the financial plan. And whatever the details of it, it's the right thing to do to take us through these difficult circumstances," Brown said at a hastily scheduled meeting with Bush at the White House.

Washington - Congress wrestled Friday across party lines over a deeply unpopular financial industry rescue plan as majority Democrats insisted that Republicans get on board before holding a vote.

The White House pulled out all the stops, sending top officials to Capitol Hill, where negotiations continued over the controversial, 700-billion-dollar life raft for Wall Street.

Talks looked likely to continue over the weekend, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

"We'll be in as long as it takes, and we hope it doesn't take long, because the markets need a message from us," she told reporters Friday following another round of meetings on the bailout.

San Francisco - Whatever feelings you might expect to follow the worst bank failure in US history - trepidation, panic, anxiety, fear - there was barely a hint of concern among customers and staff Friday at a suburban California branch of Washington Mutual.

Sure, there were the usual lines of customers grinding their teeth in frustration as they waited for an available cashier at a WaMu branch in San Jose, California. But there was hardly any serious discussion among customers about the implications of the bank's failure, and certainly no apparent run on the bank.

Washington- US stocks plummeted as markets opened Friday over the impasse in the 700-billion-dollar financial rescue plan in the nation's capital and the collapse of Washington Mutual Inc, in the largest bank failure in US history.

Washington- The final figure for US growth in the second quarter of 2008 was adjusted downward Thursday to 2.8 per cent by the US government, which indicated that strong exports and fewer imports helped prevent the figure from sliding any lower.

The gross domestic product (GDP) figure for the second quarter was the final of three estimates, which had previously pegged growth at 1.9 per cent and then 3.3 per cent for the second quarter in previous calculations by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

In the first quarter, real GDP increased 0.9 percent.