USA
Hoping to hash out a deal to save Lehman Brothers, the struggling investment bank, Federal Reserve and Treasury Department officials met with executives of several Wall Street banks over the weekend. The government is opposed to using taxpayer money to help rescue Lehman Brothers. Besides selling the company whole or piecemeal, Lehman could be liquidated.
Efforts in a Dallas suburb to ban immigrants from renting apartments if they can't prove they live legally in the country was put on hold over the weekend by a temporary restraining order. US District Judge Jayne Boyle said the ordinance in the town of Farmers Branch risked overriding the role of the federal government on immigration matters. She said the merits of the case will be fully heard in an upcoming hearing.
The architects of the distinctive "Bird's Nest" Olympic stadium in Beijing are scheduled to unveil plans Monday for an innovative New York glass skyscraper that will resemble "houses stacked in the sky." Swiss architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron say their first international high-rise, a 57-story condominium building, will feature dramatic cantilevered terraces. Construction in lower Manhattan is to begin in mid-October.
US school administrators are increasingly looking to fill shortages of qualified math and science teachers with international instructors, according to an Associated Press report. Opponents of the trend view it as a quick fix to deal with a wave of baby-boom US teacher retirements.
Chicago, which unveiled history's first Ferris wheel, wants a private developer to finance and build a 300-foot-tall wheel, the Chicago Tribune reported. The city currently has a 150-feet Ferris wheel on the Navy Pier modeled after the one built for Chicago's 1893 Columbian Exposition.
San Antonio will begin to sell an average of 1.5 million cubic feet of methane gas generated daily from the treatment of residents' biosolids, or sewage, the water utility says. Officials believe it is the only US city that also sells treated wastewater and biosolids converted into compost.
Southern California solidified its claim to the nation's No. 1 college football ranking Saturday by crushing No. 5 Ohio State, 35-3, before a crowd of 93,607 at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The Trojans have won 39 of their last 40 home games.
