Washington - Part of Mexico's eastern coast was under a hurric

New York - Bank of America Corp saw third quarter profits drop by more than two-thirds, prompting it on Monday to halve its dividend payments and sell 10 billion dollars in stock to raise money.

"These are the most difficult times for financial institutions that I have experienced in my 39 years in banking," Kenneth D Lewis, the bank's chairman and chief executive said in a statement.

Washington - Richard Fuld, chief executive of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, was forced to defend his own lofty pay check before Congress on Monday and warned that the disaster which drove his company into the ground could have happened to any financial firm.

Fuld said he felt "horrible" about the demise of the 158-year-old institution and took responsibility for his actions, but he warned that the "financial tsunami" that engulfed his company was part of a much wider loss of confidence in the banking system.

Washington - As Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain prepare for the second presidential debate on Tuesday, their campaigns have taken on a nastier tone on the airwaves and over the internet.

Obama revived McCain's role in the savings and loans scandal of the late 1980s and early 1990s, while the Arizona senator's campaign called Obama "dangerous" and emphasized his meeting in 1995 with a member of a radical 1960s anti-Vietnam war group.

San Francisco - RealNetworks said Monday that it had stopped distribution of a software program to rip off DVDs, in compliance with a temporary injunction issued Friday by a federal court in California.