TORONTO (Reuters) - Announcing what it said were "essential milestones" allowing the world's largest leveraged buyout to go ahead, BCE Inc said on Friday that its buyers had finalized funding and were sticking to their C$34.8-billion ($34.1 billion) purchase price.

SEOUL (Reuters) - Unionized employees of Hyundai Motor Co will walk off the job for four hours next week to push for a pay increase, the auto maker's union said on Saturday.

David Bonderman, the chief executive of TPG, was personally given a 15-minute ultimatum by the City’s chief regulator to back Bradford & Bingley or pull out, The Times has learnt.

Southern Cross, Britain’s largest care homes operator, may have far more empty beds than shareholders had previously believed, it emerged yesterday as its shares fell a further 14.5 per cent.

Trinity Mirror rejected City concerns that it may have to make substantial payments to help to prop up its £1.5 billion pension fund.

Millions of Britons who flew across the Atlantic between two and four years ago are being invited to claim a share of more than £70 million that has been ordered to be handed over to them.

Economics

One of the most senior executives at John Lewis said yesterday that he feared the economy was at a delicate point as the department store group reported its worst weekly sales fall for three years.

Never has it been more profitable to grease the wheels of business by illicit means. Rocketing prices have prompted a rash of grease thefts from outside fast food joints.

Linklaters capped an extraordinary year for the City's leading law firms yesterday by announcing a record turnover of £1.2 billion, but failed to overtake Clifford Chance as the world's largest firm.

More than a million 11 and 14-year-olds in England will get their Sats results late this year because of administrative chaos.

Government-backed school choice advisers are finding it hard to reach disadvantaged parents, a study says.

Many children in England are being denied a schooling in global events, a survey for an educational charity says.

Two leading sexual health charities call for compulsory sex education for children as young as four.

A Jewish school is cleared of racially discriminating against an 11-year-old boy it refused to admit.

Ed Balls says schools in England should not be stressing their young pupils over national tests.

Head teachers accuse ministers of misallocating public funding to raise standards in England's schools.

UK physics and astronomy will spend nearly £2bn in the next three years, but some programmes face cuts.

One in four secondary schools in England does not have any specialist physics teachers, says a survey.

Jackie Storer joins the guests as schools secretary Ed Balls celebrates his department's first birthday with "the Fonz".

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - All four members of supergroup ABBA appeared together on Friday at the Swedish premiere of the film "Mamma Mia!", delighting fans with their first public showing for years.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - For years Hollywood's paparazzi have hounded celebrities, but now -- with help from local politicians, a lawyer in the Monica Lewinsky case, and even Malibu surfers -- they are the ones feeling the heat.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Baseball star Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees and his wife, Cynthia, have broken up, according to the New York Daily News, amid media speculation that he has been seeing pop star Madonna.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actor Josh Peck has spent much of his teenage and young adult life in front of television cameras portraying the chubby, goofy character Josh in the Nickelodeon cable TV series "Drake & Josh."

MIAMI (Reuters) - The call girl linked to the sex scandal that prompted the resignation of then-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer in March has dropped a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against "Girls Gone Wild" founder Joe Francis.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - When Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney began filming the story of drug-addled U.S. journalist Hunter S. Thompson at the late author's funeral, he says it was one of his "greatest failures" in making the documentary.

The agent of Top Gear host James May denies the star is seeking the same salary as Jeremy Clarkson.

The four members of Abba reunite in public for the first time in three years at the Swedish premiere of Mamma Mia.

Fans await the end of the current series of Doctor Who, after a major cliffhanger in the penultimate episode.

Three new female contestants join Big Brother, while part-time model Jennifer Clark is evicted from Channel 4's show.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Food safety experts agreed for the first time on the qualities defining a tomato, in a first step toward an international code on preventing fruit and vegetable contamination.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new strain of West Nile virus is spreading better and earlier across the United States, and may thrive in hot American summers, researchers said on Thursday.

LONDON (Reuters) - An imbalance of a key brain chemical could cause crib death, researchers said on Thursday in what they called a chance discovery.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Breast reconstruction after cancer surgery can have lasting benefits for women's psychological well-being and body image, a new study suggests.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The investigation of a salmonella outbreak in the United States is shifting to the southern border to encompass produce imported from Mexico, CNN reported on Thursday.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Human papillomavirus type 16 (HPV-16), which has been linked to cervical cancer, can be detected in human breast milk collected during the early period after a woman delivers her baby, doctors from Finland report.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Key-hole surgery to treat endometriosis is associated with good short-term outcomes but has a high reoperation rate in the long run, research suggests. Hysterectomy, on the other hand, while "too radical," is associated with a low reoperation rate, the study team found, and preservation of the ovaries is a "viable option."

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who take part in clinical trials often do so out of a desire to advance scientific knowledge and to help others, a new international study demonstrates.

Women who get a replacement kidney from a male donor are more likely to reject the new organ, scientists suggest.

Eating high levels of some soy products - including tofu - may raise the risk of memory loss, research suggests.

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. judge's order to Google Inc to turn over YouTube user data to Viacom Inc sparked an outcry on Thursday from privacy advocates in the midst of a legal showdown over video piracy.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Want to buy newspaper stocks? You should see an analyst. Trouble is there aren't many around anymore.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Ask.com, the Web search unit of IAC/InterActiveCorp, has closed an all-cash deal to acquire Lexico Publishing Group LLC, the owner of popular reference sites Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com.

(Reuters) - Mozilla, developer of open-source Web browser Firefox, said on Wednesday it set a new Guinness World Record for the largest number of software downloads in 24 hours.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - An online network formed by professional TV and film scribes during the Hollywood writers' strike earlier this year unveiled a slate Wednesday featuring contributions from the minds behind the likes of "The Office" and "Die Hard."

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Los Angeles Times will slash 250 jobs, including 150 in the newsroom, and trim its published pages by 15 percent in an effort to save money in the face of declining revenues, the newspaper said on Wednesday.

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp and Yahoo Inc have been holding separate talks with other potential media partners after their negotiations with each other broke down, sources familiar with the companies' thinking said on Wednesday.

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Internet search company Google signed an agreement with Brazilian public prosecutors on Wednesday to help combat child pornography on its social networking site Orkut, an accord that the company believes is the first of its kind internationally.

HELSINKI (Reuters) - The world's top cellphone maker Nokia said on Thursday it had signed a cooperation agreement with Norwegian telcom group Telenor for its "Ovi" Internet services platform.

TORONTO (Reuters) - A Canadian fiddler who is no stranger to controversy has put half his future music earnings up for sale on eBay, the auction website.

Linklaters capped an extraordinary year for the City's leading law firms yesterday by announcing a record turnover of £1.2 billion, but failed to overtake Clifford Chance as the world's largest firm.

A court has asked bailiffs to reclaim £400 from easyJet to compensate a passenger who missed his flight home when his train was delayed by flooding.

Millions of Britons who flew across the Atlantic between two and four years ago are being invited to claim a share of more than £70 million that has been ordered to be handed over to them.

When is a crisp not a crisp? When it is more like a cake or biscuit. And when its shape is derived not from nature but nurture.

What constitutes a garden and gardening has been redefined by a judge who ruled that chopping down a swath of trees can count as weeding rather than forestry.

A group of wealthy individuals including Guy Hands, the private equity luminary, have accused Baker Tilly, the accountancy firm, and a leading barrister of professional negligence in £23 million compensation claim.

Vodafone, the world’s largest telecoms group, has won a £2 billion tax battle with Revenue and Customs (HMRC) that could lead to billions of pounds of savings for other UK-based multi-nationals.

Results season among City law firms ended today as Linklaters announced its figures. They were eagerly awaited: would it surpass Clifford Chance as the world’s biggest firm? Would it match the astonishing rise in profitability of bitter rival Freshfields?

Linklaters, one of the so-called "magic circle" of UK law firms, narrowly avoided overtaking rival, Clifford Chance, when it announced record turnover for the last financial year.

When the Archbishop of Canterbury waded into the choppy waters of Sharia this year, he caused uproar - not least, by his own subsequent admission, because of the “unclarity” of his remarks.

BUTTE, Montana (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama mixed presidential politics with parades and barbecue on U.S. Independence Day on Friday, celebrating his daughter's birthday with a picnic and fireworks in Montana.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jesse Helms, a die-hard anti-communist firebrand who championed a wide range of conservative causes in his 30 years in the U.S. Senate, died early on Friday, aged 86, his foundation said.

FARGO, North Dakota (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama waded into controversy on Thursday over his plans to withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq, first saying he might "refine" his views but later declaring his stance had remained unchanged for more than a year.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain took a veiled swipe at Democratic rival Barack Obama over trade on Thursday in the final leg of a Latin American trip aimed at showcasing the Arizona senator's foreign policy credentials.

PANAMA CITY (Reuters) - Panama has ruled out hosting a U.S. military base to replace one in Ecuador which is being reclaimed by the Quito government, a senior Panamanian official said on Friday.

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland spurned as insufficient on Friday a U.S. offer to boost its air defenses in return for basing anti-missile interceptors on its soil but said it remained open to talks with Washington.

BERLIN (Reuters) - Deputy U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt said on Friday he was confident about the United States' economic fundamentals in the long term despite a current rough patch and was quite optimistic about the future.

Labour MSP Margaret Curran says she will stand as a candidate for the Glasgow East by-election after the frontrunner drops out.

The Conservatives are in "disarray" after the resignation of London deputy mayor Ray Lewis, Labour says.

The committee on standards in public life is considering an inquiry into MPs' expenses, the BBC understands.

ROME (Reuters) - The Italian government declared a state of emergency at the Pompeii archaeological site on Friday to try to rescue one of the world's most important cultural treasures from decades of neglect.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new strain of West Nile virus is spreading better and earlier across the United States, and may thrive in hot American summers, researchers said on Thursday.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Archeologists are opening a cave sealed for more than 30 years deep beneath a Mexican pyramid to look for clues about the mysterious collapse of one of ancient civilization's largest cities.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Volcanic activity has played a central role in forging the surface of Mercury, scientists said on Thursday based on data collected by a NASA spacecraft that zoomed past the closest planet to the sun in January.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Food safety experts agreed for the first time on the qualities defining a tomato, in a first step toward an international code on preventing fruit and vegetable contamination.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The solar system may not be a nice round shape, but rather a bit squashed and oblong, according to data from the Voyager 2 spacecraft exploring the solar system's outer limits, scientists said on Wednesday.

The smallest planet in the Solar System has become even smaller, studies by the Messenger spacecraft show.

Nobel Laureate Sir John Sulston says medical profits are taking precedence over the needs of patients.

The government has decided against a cull of badgers in England to control TB in cattle, the BBC understands.

Italian ministers declare a "state of emergency" at the ancient ruined city of Pompeii as it sinks deeper into disrepair.

PARIS (Reuters) - Jerome Kerviel, the trader accused of causing record losses at French bank Societe Generale , has found a new job, French magazine Le Point reported on its website on Thursday.

5.35pm Robson proceeds smoothly to three Championship points, but then double-faults the first. But a great serve that Lertcheewakarn cannot return gives her the match and makes her the first British girl since Annabel Croft 24 years ago to win this title. Her mother smiles broadly from the gallery and receives the congratulations from spectators seated around her. There is a general look of utter disbelief on Robson's face as the ovation from a packed No 1 continues. On such hopes is a nation built. Robson wins 6-3, 3-6, 6-1.

Heikki Kovalainen secured the first pole position of his Formula One career to put McLaren team-mate Lewis Hamilton in the shade.

NEW ZEALAND made sure that their old enemy, South Africa, suffered their first defeat as world champions in a frenetic TriNations opener that showcased the ELV’s (Experimental Law Variations) in full for the first time at elite international level.

An unlikely combination of Nelson Mandela and two lesser-known cricket administrators emerged as the most influential figures behind Zimbabwe’s withdrawal from the ICC World Twenty20 tournament, which will go ahead as planned in England next June, to the relief and delight of an unwavering ECB delegation.

Emmanuel Adebayor once told Arsène Wenger that he would play for Arsenal for free. The fee for his services now is closer to a six-figure weekly sum, but the Togo forward is aware of what it means to have nothing.

It may surprise Avram Grant, but Roman Abramovich has told a court that he keeps his nose out of running Chelsea. The Russian billionaire has appeared to have plenty of input at Stamford Bridge since he bought the club in 2003, but in legal papers filed as part of his “clash of the oligarchs” court battle with Boris Berezovsky, he claims that he is not involved in the day-to-day running of the club.

Mark Hughes, the Manchester City manager, having sealed a club-record deal this week for Jô, the Brazil forward, continued to make progress yesterday, when Richard Dunne, the club captain, who had appeared likely to leave before the Welshman's arrival, signed a new four-year contract.

Dead certs

Roger Federer does not own Centre Court. Nobody does, nobody ever has. The most singular arena in sport does not go in for being owned, rather it will lend itself on a complex lease-hire system and is always ready to foreclose at the cruellest and least convenient moment.

Thursday morning: school sports day. Thursday afternoon: visit to Tate Britain to see Martin Creed's Work No850, in which sprinters run the length of the gallery at 30-second intervals. I won't have been the first person to stand in the Tate and think: “My nine-year-old could do better than that.” But at least, in my case, the relevant comparison was fairly fresh in my mind.

NEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A U.S. judge's order to Google Inc to turn over YouTube user data to Viacom Inc sparked an outcry on Thursday from privacy advocates in the midst of a legal showdown over video piracy.

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean flat screen maker LG Display Co and two smaller Taiwanese rivals are set to post profits for the second quarter that more than trebled thanks to strong demand for TVs and tight supplies of PC panels.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - If "American Idol" and a modern fairy tale combined to create a video game, you'd get "Boogie SuperStar" -- Electronic Art's latest game for the Nintendo Wii system.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Just how many "brains" does your personal computer need, anyway?

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Ask.com, the Web search unit of IAC/InterActiveCorp, has closed an all-cash deal to acquire Lexico Publishing Group LLC, the owner of popular reference sites Dictionary.com and Thesaurus.com.

(Reuters) - Mozilla, developer of open-source Web browser Firefox, said on Wednesday it set a new Guinness World Record for the largest number of software downloads in 24 hours.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The deteriorating U.S. economy and slumping stock prices will frame discussions among top media and technology executives at the 26th annual Allen & Co confab in Sun Valley, Idaho, next week.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Nintendo Co Ltd's Wii game console once again outsold Sony Corp's PlayStation 3 in Japan in June, but its lead is fading, a game magazine publisher said.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese private broadcaster TV Asahi Corp aims to ally with an information technology and telecoms firm by the end of the year and is open to a capital tie-up, its president said.

Google's plans to launch a mapping tool in the UK could be referred to the Information Commissioner.

A man is arrested in connection with the murder of two French students who were stabbed and burned in a flat in London.

The Conservatives are in "disarray" after the resignation of London deputy mayor Ray Lewis, Labour says.

Reaching out to young people is key to tackling knife crime, The Archbishop of York tells the Church of England Synod.

Labour MSP Margaret Curran says she will stand as a candidate for the Glasgow East by-election after the frontrunner drops out.

Close to 150,000 homeowners who took out mortgages since early 2007 may face negative equity, research suggests.

The parents of Shakilus Townsend, London's latest teenage knife death victim, thank a woman who tried to save him.

Checks which wrongly brand some people as criminals are "regrettable", the Home Office says.

The cost of living for pensioners has outstripped inflation over the past 10 years, research suggests.

A senior cleric urges the Church of England Synod to resolve its dispute over ordaining women bishops.

A couple tie the knot in the seasonal goods aisle at the supermarket in Dundee where they first met and both work.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Exhausted California firefighters worked on Friday to contain two wildfires threatening homes along the coast before sundown, when shifting winds were expected to give the blazes more power.

OMAHA, Nebraska (Reuters) - Michael Phelps broke his own world record in the 200 meters individual medley at the U.S. Olympic swim trials on Friday, clocking a time of one minute, 54.80 seconds.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. defending champion Joey Chestnut won the annual Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest on Friday by downing 64 hot dogs in a competition that stretched into a first-ever overtime.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new strain of West Nile virus is spreading better and earlier across the United States, and may thrive in hot American summers, researchers said on Thursday.

GENEVA (Reuters) - Food safety experts agreed for the first time on the qualities defining a tomato, in a first step toward an international code on preventing fruit and vegetable contamination.

SAN ANTONIO, Texas (Reuters) - Three U.S. defense contractors freed after five years as rebel-held hostages in Colombia are in good health and could go home within a few days, U.S. Army doctors said Thursday.

AP - Authorities in Toledo, Ohio, say a fast-moving fire at an apartment complex has destroyed eight buildings and left more than 100 people homeless.

AP - An accident during a municipal Fourth of July fireworks display injured at least a dozen people, local fire officials said.

BOGOTA/PARIS (Reuters) - Colombia showed a video on Friday of the rescue of Ingrid Betancourt and 14 other hostages where their anger turned to ecstasy as theater-trained military agents duped and overpowered leftist rebels.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Jesse Helms, a die-hard anti-communist firebrand who championed a wide range of conservative causes in his 30 years in the U.S. Senate, died early on Friday, aged 86, his foundation said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Exhausted California firefighters worked on Friday to contain two wildfires threatening homes along the coast before sundown, when shifting winds were expected to give the blazes more power.

BUTTE, Montana (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama mixed presidential politics with parades and barbecue on U.S. Independence Day on Friday, celebrating his daughter's birthday with a picnic and fireworks in Montana.

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean police said they expect about 35,000 to gather on Saturday for a protest against a U.S. beef import deal and the polices of the new president, whose government has faced a crisis due to the weeks of street rallies.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. defending champion Joey Chestnut won the annual Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest on Friday by downing 64 hot dogs in a competition that stretched into a first-ever overtime.

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, defiant despite growing African condemnation of his re-election, said on Friday the opposition must drop its claim to power and accept that he was the rightful head of state.

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran responded on Friday to an incentives package offered by six world powers aimed at resolving a standoff over its disputed nuclear ambitions.

WARSAW (Reuters) - Poland spurned as insufficient on Friday a U.S. offer to boost its air defenses in return for basing anti-missile interceptors on its soil but said it remained open to talks with Washington.

Hopes of early negotiations to end the crisis in Zimbabwe took a fresh blow yesterday as Robert Mugabe ruled out any talks with the opposition until it recognises him formally as the legitimate President.