UNITED STATES

The U.S. official responsible for setting pay for top executives at finance firms that received billions of dollars in government aid will take his time and conduct his work in private, a spokesman said on Friday.

Latin American stocks and currencies posted losses on Friday after U.S. consumer sentiment weakened unexpectedly in August, raising questions about the strength of the economic recovery and increasing global aversion to risk.

The founder of the defunct British online gambling firm BetOnSports pleaded guilty in U.S. court on Friday and agreed to forfeit more than $43 million in criminal proceeds, the Justice Department said.

Wall Street's top cop has a lot to prove and its been taking no prisoners.

U.S. crude oil futures settled down $3.01 to $67.51 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange Friday after a report showed consumer sentiment in early August was weak. Seven of the top ten best paid chief executive officers in the United States last year belong to oil companies.

Search market leader Google Inc holds greater loyalty among its users, who conduct more searches a month than those on Yahoo! and Microsoft, new data issued on Friday showed, posing a challenge for the new team of rivals to Google.

BB&T Corp. and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. have reached an agreement to take over Colonial BancGroup in Alabama the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg reported citing anonymous sources. Colonial is Alabama's second-largest bank with $26.4 billion in assets and 355 branches in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Nevada and Texas. The takeover would make BB&T the ninth-biggest U.S. bank by assets.

Damon Weaver the sixth grade student, who had been seeking to interview President Barack Obama for several months, finally sat with the President at the White House.

Private equity firm Blackstone Group LP plans to launch a 5-billion-yuan ($732 million) fund that will primarily invest in the city of Shanghai, the city said in a statement on Friday.

Blackstone's chief executive officer, Stephen Schwarzman, tops the list of top 10 highest-paid executives in the U.S. last year with a staggering package of $702 million according to reports from the Corporate Library.

U.S. President Barack Obama, pushing for healthcare reform during a trip to conservative Montana, said on Friday the country was held hostage by insurance companies that deny coverage to sick people.

A landmark settlement that will spare UBS a lengthy and damaging U.S. tax trial is set to be signed next week and will involve the disclosure of the biggest holders of secret Swiss accounts.

U.S. consumers' gloom deepened in early August as worry about scarce jobs and falling income overshadowed positive news that industrial output in July grew for the first time in nine months.

Eunice Shriver Kennedy's funeral service took place on Friday August 14 at Saint Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Hyannis, Massachusetts.

Allied Irish Banks received an approach from a third party for a minority stake, it said on Friday, in what could indicate scope for recovery among Irish banks which have been pummeled by the credit crisis.

U.S. stocks fell broadly on Friday, as the major indexes snapped a four-week streak of gains after weak consumer sentiment data fueled concerns about the strength of an economic recovery.

Investors lured by healthier stock markets and private equity firms eager to unload stakes in their portfolio companies are setting the stage for the return of billion-dollar-sized initial public offerings to the United States.

BB&T Corp. and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. have reached an agreement to take over Colonial BancGroup in Alabama the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg reported citing anonymous sources.

U.S. Southeast regional bank BB&T Corp will buy deposits and branches of Colonial BancGroup Inc following a move by regulators to take the struggling lender into receivership, media reports said, citing people familiar with the matter.

NASA's television program, showing how the space agency makes contributions to everyday life, has been downloaded more than one million times.

President Barack Obama was interviewed on Thursday night at the White House by an 11-year-old journalist from Florida.