Republicans and Democrats agree that help is needed for the sagging U.S. housing market and the ailing American economy in general. But President Bush and a Democratic lawmaker have made it clear they differ on what kind of help is needed. VOA's Kent Klein reports from Washington.

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Just-before-deadline FDA drug approval leads to more safety problems, study says

WASHINGTON | Vioxx, Bextra, Rezulin, Baycol. Looking at drugs yanked off the market, Harvard researchers found a disturbing pattern:</p><p>Medicines approved right on deadline by the Food and Drug Administration are more likely to cause safety problems later than those cleared with more time to spare.</p><p>Congress set strict deadlines for the FDA to speed the arrival of new medications, but critics have long complained that the ticking clock spurred a dangerous rush to judgment.</p><p>The Harvard analysis of decades of drug approvals, which was published in today's <em>New England Journal of Medicine</em>, provides the first scientific evidence supporting some of those complaints.</p><p>The FDA challenged the findings with its own statistics.

Margareta Pagano: Can the Nicky Clarke of Threadneedle Street snip his way out of this credit crisis?

Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, is hunting for new haircuts. Not for his own distinctive locks but as a way of breaking the gridlock in the inter-bank lending market. Like any good hairdresser, King is looking at much sharper styles, ways of making his clients not just look good but start lending to each other again. A number one comes to mind. But more of that later.

But it was King's disclosure that he is working with the big clearing banks to find radical ways to resolve the credit crunch that is winning him brownie points.

Zimbabwe: Stock Market Takes a Tumble

The stock market slipped further yesterday on the back of firming money market rates after the central bank raised secured and non-secured lending rates.