US President George W Bush vowed to fight to rescue the US economy today as world leaders, including Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, clamoured for action after Congress blocked a $US700 billion ($879 billion) bailout.

INTEREST rates could fall by as much as 50 basis points when the Reserve Bank meets next week, economists say.

COMMODITY prices have seen the biggest quarterly drop in more than 50 years as fears grow that China's seemingly insatiable demand for raw materials will slow dramatically.

HARVEY Norman says sales in the two months since the end of its 2007/08 financial year have increased by 6.9 per cent against the previous corresponding period.

WE take a look at how leaders around the world reacted to US politicians voting against a proposed bailout of US banks.

ABC Learning chief executive Eddy Groves and his co-founder wife Le Neve Groves have been ousted from the childcare company.

AUSTRALIA'S mining boom looks vulnerable in the wake of the US Government's decision to vote the bailout package down.

AN EERIE silence permeated Brisbane's major corporate restaurants yesterday as distraught stockbrokers decided to spend their day with a sandwich at their desk.

NATIONAL Australia Bank spooked investors again last night, revealing that its 2008 profit would take a $100 million hit due to troubled debt investments on top of the $1 billion revealed in July.

SOCIAL workers are threatening to refuse to answer phone calls made during the night to a state's key children-in-crisis report line.

A CARPENTER who cheered during a senseless slingshot attack on a koala has lost his job - and been ordered to perform 150 hours of community service.

A SEARCH for a fisherman missing off South Australia's coast has been abandoned, with police saying there was no way he could have survived.

FORESTRY Tasmania has changed the name of its tourist attraction near Smithton to something deemed less dismal.

STAFF at Hobart's Target store are being offered counselling as trading resumed after a fatal stabbing inside their shop, the company says.

Family ready to post six-figure reward Father plans to fly to Croatia on Friday AFP officer due to arrive tomorrow

WEST Australian police have used DNA technology to identify a man who allegedly raped a woman in her Kalgoorlie home 21 years ago.

AN 18-year-old Perth man has been charged with towing a couch behind his Holden Commodore with two teenagers sitting on it.

AN elderly man who sexually abused eight members of his family over almost four decades was a vile and parasitic offender, a judge said today.

THE gang bashing of Dr Mukesh Haikerwal was one of five similar mugging incidents that occurred within an hour in Melbourne's west on Saturday night.

WEST Australian environment officers have euthanased a juvenile humpback whale stranded on a beach near Jurien Bay.