AFP - German drug maker Merck is to make a formal offer for rivals Schering next month, Merck boss Michael Roemer said in a newspaper interview.

AP - Lebanon on Wednesday asked Brazil to continue to hold a Lebanese banker wanted for questioning in the assassination of a former premier pending the dispatch of a formal Lebanese extradition request.

AFP - The son of the late Yugoslav strongman Slobodan Milosevic was expected in The Hague to recover his father's body for burial in their Serbian homeland.

Reuters - Adopting a formal target for long-run inflation "makes sense" for the Federal Reserve and would improve the effectiveness of U.S. monetary policy, San Francisco Fed President Janet Yellen said on Monday.

AP - President Hu Jintao urged China's 2.5 million-member military to ensure national unity by beefing up its combat skills, amid harsh warnings to Taiwan's leaders against moving toward formal independence.

Reuters - A consortium of private equity firms consisting of Bain Capital, Hellman & Friedman, Texas Pacific Group, and Thomas H. Lee Partners submitted a formal offer on Thursday for newspaper publisher Knight Ridder Inc. , according to sources familiar with the matter.

Reuters - A consortium of private equity firms consisting of Bain Capital, Hellman & Friedman, Texas Pacific Group, and Thomas H. Lee Partners submitted a formal offer on Thursday for newspaper publisher Knight Ridder Inc. , according to sources familiar with the matter.

AP - Investors led by U.S. billionaire Carl Icahn said Thursday they were ready to consider raising their informal offer to acquire South Korea's former government tobacco monopoly, but stopped short of making a formal bid.

Reuters - President George W. Bush will soon make a formal request to Congress for a line-item veto -- authority that would give him power to cancel specific spending items in budget bills, an administration official said on Sunday.

AP - A U.S. trade envoy said Friday that China is failing to do enough to prevent growing product piracy and could be forced to answer formal complaints over it in the World Trade Organization if it doesn't take more aggressive action.

AP - Microsoft Corp. filed a formal complaint with EU antitrust regulators Thursday, alleging that the European Commission withheld documents and secretly colluded with rival companies shortly before the EU charged that Microsoft had not obeyed an earlier ruling.

U.S. President George W. Bush was warmly greeted by Indian officials Thursday as the two nations intensified negotiations on a landmark nuclear deal.

Reuters - U.S. and Indian officials edged close to sewing up a landmark nuclear deal on Thursday as communist and Islamist groups vowed more mass protests ahead of formal talks involving President George W. Bush.

Ayinde O. Chase - All Headline News Staff Writer Washington DC (AHN) - The Sugar Association filed a formal petition requesting the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) "undertake rulemaking to establish specific rules and regulations governing the definition of 'natural' before a 'natural' claim...