MARKETS / FINANCE

A top White House economic adviser slammed Standard & Poor's on Saturday for having stuck with its decision to downgrade the U.S. credit rating despite having made a $2 trillion mistake in its fiscal projections.

Global leaders on Saturday arranged a round of emergency calls to discuss the twin debt crises in Europe and the United States that are causing turmoil in financial markets.

British Prime Minister David Cameron spoke to French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Saturday evening to discuss the financial situation after the U.S. credit rating downgrade, Cameron's office said.

Hewlett Packard reduced the price of its TouchPad tablet computer again, highlighting the uphill battle manufacturers will need to overcome as they go head-to-head against the dominant Apple iPad line of tablets.

Finance ministers and central bankers of the Group of Seven major industrialized nations will confer by telephone on turmoil in the financial markets later on Saturday or on Sunday, a senior European diplomatic source said.

Federal criminal investigations into failed mortgage lenders IndyMac Bancorp and New Century Financial Corp have stalled, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.

While S&P?s downgrade of the U.S. Government?s credit rating is controversial, most agree that the U.S. fiscal condition is serious. And while both Democrats and Republicans increased the budget deficit, three major policy errors by President George W. Bush last decade substantially worsened the U.S.?s fiscal condition, and the nation has been trying to recover ever since.

America is broken. Here are five ways to fix the nation's health.

In a stunning development, Standard & Poor?s Friday downgraded the U.S. Government's credit rating from AAA to AA+, arguing Washington has made inadequate progress cutting the budget deficit. The U.S. Treasury disagrees with S&P?s analysis and conclusion, but interest rates on U.S. home mortgages and car loans are likely to rise.

China bluntly criticized the United States on Saturday one day after the superpower's credit rating was downgraded, saying the good old days of borrowing were over.

The European Central Bank remains divided over whether to buy Italian government bonds but even some of those who favor the move say Italy should do more to front-load austerity measures, ECB sources said Saturday.

The European Union's top economic official praised Italy's decision to accelerate budget-balancing measures and structural economic reforms on Saturday and said swift implementation would now be crucial.

The United States lost its top-tier AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's on Friday in an unprecedented blow to the world's largest economy in the wake of a political battle that took the country to the brink of default.

The United States lost its top-tier AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's, drawing a blast of criticism on Saturday from its biggest creditor China and deepening investors' alarm over the euro zone crisis.

Dolce & Gabbana have deleted posts on its official Facebook Page after Change.org members posted messages demanding that the company ban sandblasting.

The United States lost its top-tier AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's on Friday, hours after investors alarmed by the euro zone debt crisis forced Italy to speed up an austerity drive.

China roundly condemned the United States for its debt addiction and short sighted political wrangling and said the world needed a new stable global reserve currency.

China on Saturday condemned the short-sighted political wrangling in the United States over its debt problems and said the world needed a new global stable reserve currency.

Chinese economists said the U.S. credit rating downgrade by Standard & Poor's poses great risk to financial markets and expect it to prompt China, the world's biggest holder of U.S. Treasuries, to accelerate the diversification of its holdings.

The top official behind Standard & Poor's historic decision on Friday to downgrade the United States' prized triple-A credit rating said it was his company's duty to make such a hard and controversial call.

The Obama administration attacked the credibility of the analysis underlying Standard & Poor's decision to downgrade the United States' top credit rating on Friday, saying it had found a $2 trillion error.

The United States lost its top-tier AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's on Friday, hours after investors alarmed by the euro zone debt crisis forced Italy to speed up an austerity drive.

Some Goldman Sachs Group Inc clients who pushed trades through its clearing division during the market rout on Thursday were unable to access information about their positions the following morning.

The United States lost its top-notch AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's on Friday, in a dramatic reversal of fortune for the world's largest economy.

Groupon Inc, which more than doubled subscribers this year to 115 million, plans to abandon the use of a controversial financial measure it once touted as a good indicator of performance, two sources with knowledge of the situation said.

Groupon Inc subscribers have more than doubled to 115 million so far this year, a source with knowledge of the situation told Reuters, a positive sign for the daily deal site's much-anticipated 2011 IPO.

Stocks closed out their worst week in more than two years on Friday in a volatile session that saw the major indexes whip back and forth before the S&P 500 settled with a slim loss.

The United States lost its top-notch AAA credit rating from Standard & Poor's on Friday in an unprecedented reversal of fortune for the world's largest economy.

Sanford Wallace, known as the Spam King, has turned himself in to U.S. authorities after he was indicted for masterminding a scheme that sent more than 27 million unsolicited junk messages through Facebook's servers.