AFP - State-owned British bank Northern Rock announced Monday that it would lend an additional 14 billion pounds (16 billion euros, 20.5 billion dollars) to would-be homebuyers in the next two years.

AP - Lawyers hired by mortgage finance giant Freddie Mac are quietly investigating the firm's own $2 million lobbying campaign, The Associated Press has learned. The lobbying effort helped quash proposed new regulations on the company before the housing market collapsed.

AP - Britain's government is throwing nationalized lender Northern Rock back into the home loan business in a bid to spur the market for mortgages, a government official said Sunday.

AP - Nancy Shade's father and grandparents had enjoyed the security of General Motors' benefits before they helped draw her to a job there, too. Now, the five-year breast cancer survivor is wondering how she'll afford her own health coverage if GM's spun-off parts maker, Delphi, terminates medical and life insurance benefits for salaried retirees.

AFP - British insurance group Prudential Plc. Friday agreed to acquire a 9.9 percent stake in Taiwan's China Life Insurance, the two firms said after signing the deal.

AP - You're struggling to make ends meet, but each month you manage to scrape together your mortgage payment, if just barely. Are there any programs out there that might help you lower your payments to something a little more affordable?

AP - Wall Street sold off again Thursday, driving the Dow Jones industrials to their lowest close in more than six years. Investors see no immediate end for the recession, already 14 months old, and have been unassuaged by the Obama administration's economic stimulus package and mortgage relief plan.

AP - As markets continue to founder, conventional wisdom suggests the place to be once a turnaround takes hold is in stocks of small companies.

AFP - President Barack Obama's new 275-billion-dollar mortgage plan will start working "very, very quickly," his top housing official said Thursday, after Republicans mounted attacks on the initiative.

Reuters - Interest rates on standard U.S. 30-year mortgages dropped in the latest week to levels just shy of record lows as concerns of a deepening recession boosted the appeal of fixed-rate investments, Freddie Mac said on Thursday.