New York  - US stocks fell on Friday after two leading banks said they made less money in March, but the major indices were still up at least 6 per cent for the week.

JPMorgan Chase & Co and Bank of America Corp said that earnings had fallen this month after they made money in the first two months of the year, pushing their shares down more than 3 per cent, Bloomberg financial news reported.

New York  - The cultural clone of shamed financial scammer Bernard Madoff has been arrested and charged after help from former tennis great John McEnroe, who reportedly lost 2 million dollars in a fine art fraud.

Mac got mad and then got even after bankrupt Lawrence Salander sold him and others shares in paintings the gallery dealer didn't actually own.

Local media reported that art-mad Mac paid up the big bucks in 2004 for a 50 percent interest in two paintings by abstract expressionist Arshile Gorky, Pirate I and Pirate II.

New York  - A United Nations panel of economists Friday proposed a new global currency reserve that would take over the US dollar-based system used for decades by international banks.

The proposal came on the heels of the controversial call by China's Central Bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan to create a new world currency reserve to replace the US dollar as part of a sweeping overhaul of global finance, which is suffering its worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

New York - The United Nations' role in Afghanistan is expected to increase in order to meet the new strategy launched by US President Barack Obama on Friday to deal with terrorism and the al-Qaeda network in that country, a senior US official said.

The official, who briefed some UN-based correspondents Friday on the new US Afghan strategy on background only, said the UN Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) will assume a "very important role the stabilization and development."

"UNAMA will have a critical role," the official said.

New York, Mar. 27 : The US Senate has approved a major national-service bill that triples the AmeriCorps program to 250,000 participants and designates Sept. 11 as a "National Day of Service and Remembrance."

"Sept. 11 should not only be a day for mourning - it should be a day to think about our neighbors, our community and our country," the New York Daily News quoted Senator Chuck Schumer, as saying.

New York, Mar. 27 : The Freedom Tower''s patriotic name has been swapped for the more marketable One World Trade Center, Port Authority officials revealed to the New York Post on Thursday.

The paper quoted Port Authority Chairman Anthony Coscia as saying: "One World Trade Center is its address. It''s the address that we''re using. It's on the one that''s easiest for people to identify with and frankly we''ve gotten a very interested and warm reception to it."