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The White House is aggressively pushing the idea that, contrary to widespread belief, President Barack Obama is tightfisted with taxpayer dollars. To back it up, the administration cites a media report that claims federal spending is rising at the slowest pace since the Eisenhower years.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nasdaq OMX said on Friday its board of directors elected Börje Ekholm to serve as the interim chairman of the exchange operator, replacing Furlong Baldwin, who retired.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nasdaq OMX <NDAQ.O> said on Friday its board of directors elected Börje Ekholm to serve as the interim chairman of the exchange operator, replacing Furlong Baldwin, who retired.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A man who police say confessed to strangling Etan Patz was charged with second-degree murder on Friday, 33 years after the 6-year-old boy vanished from his New York neighborhood and soon changed the way the nation responds to missing children.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A man who police say confessed to strangling Etan Patz was charged with second-degree murder on Friday, 33 years after the 6-year-old boy vanished from his New York neighborhood and soon changed the way the nation responds to missing children.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Securities regulators are looking into whether Nasdaq violated any technical exchange rules when it botched Facebook Inc's market debut last week, according to people familiar with the matter.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hedge funds and other money managers betting on a continued rally in U.S. wheat from dry weather bought close to $2 billion worth of contracts in the grain over a week before the market's tumble three days ago, trade data on Friday showed.

(Reuters) - Red-hot Jason Dufner remained on track for a third PGA Tour victory in just four weeks by surging into a two-shot lead in Friday's second round of the Colonial Invitational in Fort Worth, Texas.

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - A U.S. Senate candidate in Texas with Tea Party backing may win enough votes in Tuesday's Republican primary to force a runoff with the state's lieutenant governor, setting up another battle for the soul of the national Republican Party.

(Reuters) - A former Mexican police officer accused of organizing a hit squad for the once-powerful Tijuana drug cartel pleaded guilty in a U.S. federal court on Friday to racketeering and drug trafficking, prosecutors said.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Astronauts aboard the International Space Station captured the SpaceX Dragon cargo ship and guided the privately owned craft into a docking berth on Friday, opening a new chapter in the U.S. space program.

LONDON (Reuters) - The London Olympics are giving "brand Britain" a fillip in China and India, a survey indicated on Saturday, boosting the UK government's ambition of attracting an extra one billion pounds of inward investment and trade.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - The Republican-led Ohio legislature approved a bill setting rules for drilling and related activities in the state's shale gas industry, in a vote late on Thursday, responding to a series of small earthquakes in Ohio last year that experts linked to a practice called fracking.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. State Department is debating the wisdom of designating the Nigerian militant group Boko Haram a "foreign terrorist organization" despite entreaties from lawmakers and the Justice Department to do so.

BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) - Lebanon said on Friday that a group of Lebanese Shi'ites kidnapped in Syria had been freed and were safe in Turkey, but produced no sign of the hostages at the centre of a kidnap drama heightening tensions over the conflict in neighboring Syria.

Australia and South Africa will share hosting of a giant radio telescope made up of thousands of separate dishes and intended to help scientists figure out the make-up of the universe, the international consortium overseeing the project announced Friday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - LCH.Clearnet, the world's biggest clearer of interest-rate swaps, did not make an initial list of global clearinghouses labeled "systemically important" by a council of U.S. regulators earlier this week, three sources familiar with the decision said.

VALPARAISO, Indiana (Reuters) - An armed man took several hostages in an Indiana real estate office on Friday, then released them after an eight-hour standoff and shot himself in the head, authorities said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Consumer sentiment rose to its highest level in more than four years in May as Americans stayed optimistic about the job market, while higher income households expected to see bigger wage increases, a survey released on Friday showed.

VALPARAISO, Indiana (Reuters) - An armed man took several hostages in an Indiana real estate office on Friday, then released them after an eight-hour standoff and shot himself in the head, authorities said.