The dollar was mixed Friday, as currency traders played it safe ahead of a long weekend amid signs that the Federal Reserve may be eyeing a sooner-than-expected rollback of its economic stimulus policies.

Speaking at the bank's annual shareholder meeting, Mr Flint revealed that the use of offshore tax havens was being reviewed in light of increased public scrutiny of the issue.

The BBC has suspended its chief technology officer and admitted wasting nearly �100m on a five-year project intended to make the corporation "tapeless", saying that to continue with the project would be "throwing good money after bad".

The expansion of an offshore windfarm that the government says could power up to 500,000 homes and boost Suffolk's economy by �20m has been approved.

Households paid off �241m more mortgage debt than they borrowed in an effort to get on top of their debts. Before May last year, net lending had never been negative since the BBA started collecting the data in 1997.