Reuters - Stocks fell, shedding earlier gains on Friday, as concerns about the economy overshadowed the U.S. House of Representatives' approval of the Bush administration's $700 billion financial rescue package.

Reuters - The House of Representatives approved a $700 billion bailout package for U.S. banks, under pressure from all sides as the effort to head off a spreading financial crisis hung in the balance.

AP - Candace Parker of the Los Angeles Sparks is the unanimous choice as WNBA rookie of the year.

AP - A 7-year-old boy broke into a popular Outback zoo, fed a string of animals to the resident crocodile and bashed several lizards to death with a rock, the zoo's director said Friday.

AP - Thirteen months after millionaire thrill-seeker Steve Fossett mysteriously disappeared, authorities finally know what happened to his small single-engine airplane: It slammed straight into a mountain on a cloudy day.

AP - A jury began deliberating Friday whether O.J. Simpson and his co-defendant robbed two sports memorabilia dealers at gunpoint in a casino hotel room.

AP - Iraq's presidential council on Friday ratified a law that paves the way for the first provincial elections in four years, officials said.

AP - Republicans John McCain and Sarah Palin on Friday played up her debate performance as polls showed voters judging her Democratic rival, Joe Biden, to be the winner of the only vice presidential face-off of the campaign.

AP - A battle broke out for control of Wachovia Friday as Wells Fargo signed a $15.1 billion agreement to buy the Charlotte, N.C.-based bank, while Citigroup and the federal regulators backing its earlier deal insisted that Citi's takeover bid go forward.

AP - Jobs are vanishing at the fastest pace in more than five years with pink slips likely to keep stacking higher in the months ahead, an urgent signal the country may be careening toward a deep and painful recession just as Americans prepare to elect a new president.

AP - Millions of taxpayers, thousands of businesses and groups as diverse as solar power developers and natural disaster victims will see tax relief with the House vote Friday to approve and send to the president a $700 billion financial rescue plan.

AP - With the economy on the brink and elections looming, Congress approved an unprecedented $700 billion government bailout of the battered financial industry on Friday and sent it to President Bush for his certain signature.

AFP - Leading Democrats were optimistic that a 700-billion-dollar Wall Street bailout would pass the US House of Representatives on Friday, but uncertainty kept stock markets skittish.

AFP - Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin defied her critics with an aggressive, folksy showing in her debate clash with Democrat Joe Biden, escaping without a disastrous gaffe.

Reuters - New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg will seek a change in the law so he can run for a third term in 2009, arguing on Thursday that the financial crisis demands a leader of his business acumen.