President Obama signs into law a spending bill, averting a shutdown of federal government services, with a vote on a payroll tax bill due next week.

Ratings agency Fitch affirms France's top-notch AAA credit rating but revises its outlook on the country to "negative".

Officers hope CCTV images will help trace two men after a ticket inspector on a train travelling from Essex to London was stabbed.

Shares in Zynga, the online games maker behind Mafia Wars and FarmVille, fall 5% on their first day of trading.

A rescue operation is under way after a boat carrying hundreds of asylum seekers sinks off the Indonesian island of Java.

The last convoy of US troops to leave Iraq crosses the border into Kuwait, nearly nine years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

An oil drilling rig capsizes under tow in freezing seas in the Russian far east, with the loss of two lives and more than 50 people missing, officials say.

Sir Steve Redgrave offers his support to Darren Fletcher after the Manchester United midfielder is revealed to be a fellow ulcerative colitis sufferer.