U.S.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - The Poseidon oil pipeline in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico will end emergency handling of Auger system crude after March 1, a Poseidon website announced Tuesday.

Capital One Financial Corp, one of the largest issuers of MasterCard and Visa credit cards, said on Tuesday that credit card defaults rose in January in the United States as job losses accelerated and unemployment soared to a 16-year peak.

An American student on trial for the murder of her British roommate had a scratch on her neck hours after the killing, a witness testified Saturday at the murder trial in Italy, the Associated Press reported.

Spurred on by President Barack Obama, US lawmakers on Thursday prepared for final votes by week's end on an unprecedented 789-billion-dollar plan to help Americans through a painful economic crisis.

Oil prices approach $42 as investors eyed an $800 billion-plus U.S. stimulus package aimed at increasing oil demand.

On Monday a suicide car bomber struck a U.S. patrol in northern Iraq killing four American soldiers and an Iraqi interpreter.

US auto suppliers are seeking as much as $25.5 billion in government aid to avoid a string of bankruptcies in the industry, according to a report.

U.S. aviation officials released audio recordings on Thursday between the tower controllers and cockpit of US Airways Flight 1549, that commercial passenger jet which landed in the Hudson River last month.

U.S. President Barack Obama is facing a tough challenge as he plans to send additional troops to Afghanistan.

U.S.-China expert says economic crisis and climate change will shape President Obama's relations with China.

On Tuesday militants blew up a bridge in northwest Pakistan, cutting the main route for supplies bound for Western forces in Afghanistan.

A U.S. commercial airline pilot called a national hero for successfully landing a disabled jet in New York’s Hudson last week on Saturday made his first public comments since the incident.

The woman at the center of the three-decade-old sex allegations against Oscar-winning film-maker Roman Polanski has filed court papers seeking dismissal of the charges against him.

Bernard Madoff ordered the transfer of £100 Million ($150M)from his UK company to his US firm weeks before he confessed of a $50 billion fraud.

The market for gold and other commodities is cooling and it is the dollar that has gained the most. The Reuters CRB Commodity Index is down 8.4 per cent over last one week.

U.S. stocks rose on Wednesday, after JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wells Fargo & Co. reported quarterly results not worse than expectations, giving some hope that the battered financial sector may be able to cut some of its losses.

The biggest challenge facing the U.S. corn-ethanol industry in 2008 will be finding a home for all the new production that is coming on stream, a leading economist with Purdue University said on Tuesday.

U.S. stocks fell sharply on Tuesday amid various reports pointing to further weakening in the economy. A drop in home sales, reduced consumer spending at AT&T and rumors of a possible bankruptcy at leading mortgage lender Countrywide Financial contributed to a nearly 2 percent drop in the benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average.

U.S. Stocks gained the most in two weeks, after news of a possible foreign investment in Merrill Lynch and a government report that consumer spending increased in November by the most in two years.

Oil prices rallied on Wednesday as a slump in U.S. crude oil stockpiles to their lowest level in nearly three years rekindled worries of a winter supply crunch.

U.S. stocks on Friday declined sharply amid concerns that rising inflation may prevent the Federal Reserve from lowering the interest rates which may affect the economy.