San Francisco - An unidentified 18-year-old was the author of an internet posting that sent Apple shares tumbling earlier this month with a false report that company co-founder Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack, Bloomberg News reported Friday.

The Securities and Exchange Commission launched an investigation into the report to discover whether it was motivated by investors hoping to drive down the company's stock and make a profit by short- selling it.

Washington - US sales of existing homes climbed 5.5 per cent in September to the highest level in a year as ongoing price declines have apparently begun peaking the interest of buyers, according to new data released Friday.

The National Association of Realtors (NAR) said home resales stood at 5.18 million in September, up from 4.91 million in August and 5.11 million a year earlier. The average price of homes dropped 9 per cent from September 2007.

Reykjavik/Washington - Iceland has reached an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a 2.1-billion-dollar emergency loan to help stabilize the country's economy, the two sides announced Friday.

An IMF team agreed to the loan during a visit to Iceland. The Washington-based crisis lender's executive board still has to approve the deal and could do so in early November, the IMF said. If approved, Reykjavik could immediately draw on 833 million dollars under the two-year arrangement.

Washington - Scott McClellan, the former White House spokesman and once a close confidant of President George W Bush, has said he will vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on November 4.

McClellan, who has since fallen out with Bush after sharply criticizing the president in his memoirs this spring, said Obama was best placed to change the way Washington does business, according to excerpts of a CNN interview to be broadcast on Saturday.

McClellan served as White House press secretary from 2003 to 2006. He had been a part of Bush's media team since his days as governor of Texas in the 1990s.