Washington - Simon Johnson, the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, warned of a global recession as a result of the devastating financial crisis that has struck the United St
San Francisco - About 70 searchers combed the area around the crash site of adventurer Steve Fossett's plane Friday as scientists were due to test a small piece of bone found near the plane.
The small bone, said by police to be about 5 centimetres by 3 centimetres was the only sign of possible human remains at the remote site. But it was far from clear that it was even human.
"When you find a bone fragment, there's no way to know until you give it to a forensic lab, whether it's human or animal," said Erica Stuart, a spokeswoman for the Madera County Sheriff's Department, which is handling the recovery. "We won't know until it's analyzed."
Washington - US President George W Bush Friday thanked the US Congress for passage of the emergency rescue plan for the country's finance system but warned that economic improvement won't happen "overnight."
"It will take some time for this legislation to have its full impact on our economy," Bush told reporters at the White House less than an hour after the measure cleared its final hurdle in the House of Representatives.
Bush said he would sign the legislation into law.
Bush, an ardent Republican advocate of free markets, over the past year has insisted the markets would solve the growing credit crunch caused by mortgage assets gone sour, and his philosophy came through in his remarks.
Washington - The US House of Representatives approved a revised financial rescue plan on Friday that paved the way for the largest government intervention in capital markets in the history of the country.
President George W Bush signed the bill later Friday, allowing the government to acquire up to 700 billion dollars in soured mortgage assets that are at the heart of the credit crisis.
The House voted by a resounding 263-171 in favour after rejecting an earlier version of the bill by 228-205 on Monday. The Senate approved the same package on Wednesday.
Washington - US stocks dropped Friday over concerns that that the 700-billion-dollar rescue plan approved earlier in the day by the House of Representatives would not be enough to loosen up credit markets and prevent a recession.
The House voted by a resounding 263-171 in favour after rejecting an earlier version of the bill by 228-205 on Monday. The Senate approved the same package earlier this week and the bill has been signed by President George W Bush, who had urged the House to reconsider or face a long and painful recession.
Major US stock indices were up more than 1 per cent shortly after the vote, but slid by closing.
San Francisco - The US Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the motive behind a false report on CNN's citizen journalist website Friday that Apple's chief executive Steve Jobs had suffered a heart attack.
The report sent the company's stock on a roller coaster ride. Shares fell 5.4 per cent Friday morning after the posting on iReport.com cited an anonymous source who said Jobs was rushed to the hospital after suffering a "major heart attack."
The report followed months of concern about the health of the iconic company founder and CEO who had surgery four years ago to treat pancreatic cancer.
