Business

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc on Friday said several top company officials, including Chairman and Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein, exercised stock options this week and obtained millions of dollars of profits by selling the resulting shares, regulatory filings show. Full Story »

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. and international accounting rule makers are planning to propose an overhaul of lease accounting as soon as Tuesday, in a move expected to affect some $1.2 trillion in leased assets. Full Story »

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - ICBC Credit Suisse Asset Management Co, the Chinese fund venture of Swiss bank Credit Suisse , said on Friday it raised more than 14 billion yuan ($2 billion) in China's biggest bond fund ever, as investors sidestep a weak stock market. Full Story »

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The lone dissenter on the US Federal Reserve's policy-making body lashed out Friday at its decision to keep interest rates at virtually zero percent, warning such a policy could boomerang. Full Story »

ST. LOUIS, Mo. - In a story Aug. 10 about Stifel Financial's earnings, The Associated Press reported erroneously that changes to the company's retirement plan would add about 62 million shares to the company's outstanding equity. The modification will add $62 million to equity. Full Story »

ROME - Police in Sicily say they've hit at the heart of the financial empire of a convicted Mafia associate, seizing euro800 million (more than $1 billion) in property and businesses, including a clinic for cancer patients and a local soccer team. Full Story »

OMAHA, Neb. - Student lender Nelnet said Friday it agreed to pay $55 million to settle a whistle-blower lawsuit that accused the company and nine other lenders of defrauding the U.S. government out of $1 billion. Full Story »

ATHENS (AFP) - Greece is in the grip of deepening recession, official data showed on Thursday, as a stinging austerity programme agreed with the EU and IMF in exchange for a debt rescue package begins to bite. Full Story »

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Conservative activists said Friday that Target Corp. won't quell the controversy over its corporate donations if the retailer gives in to demands from the left to renounce involvement in political campaigns or to help gay-friendly candidates. Full Story »

PHILADELPHIA - A bank has foreclosed on a $615,000 condominium owned by the head of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, who earned $350,000 last year leading the nation's fourth-largest public-housing agency. Full Story »

NEW ORLEANS - The man with pinpoint accuracy who is drilling the relief well meant to plug BP's runaway well is looking forward to finishing his mission and celebrating with a cigar, a dinner party with his crew and a trip somewhere quiet to unwind with his wife. Full Story »

• Video: Obama vows to restore Gulf Coast Reuters
• Slideshow: Regrowth seen in Gulf's oiled marshes

DANKOTUWA, Sri Lanka (AFP) - Sri Lankan exporters braced for hard times as the EU's withdrawal of import concessions took effect Sunday after Colombo's refusal to allow scrutiny of its human rights record. Full Story »

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Europe's biggest automaker Volkswagen is to join forces with DRB-HICOM, one of Malaysia's largest car distributors and importers, to assemble and manufacture cars in the country, a report said Sunday. Full Story »