New York/Washington  - The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc and fears of more looming bank failures sent US investors running for the hills Monday in the latest sign of a deepening credit crisis in the United States.

Monday's trading on Wall Street saw the steepest selloff since the lending crunch began last year, as the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 500 points - some 4.4 per cent - in its biggest one-day drop since October 2002.

New York  - Major US stock indices posted some of their worst losses in years on Monday in response to a significant deepening of the credit crisis and fears of widespread banking failures in the United States.

The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbled more than 500 points - some 4.4 per cent - and closed below 11,000 for its biggest one-day drop since the September 2001 terrorist attacks. The broader Standard & Poor's 500 Index plunged more than 4.7 per cent for its lowest close since October 2005.

New York  - The UN General Assembly prepared Monday to open its 63rd annual session, confronted with a host of challenges topped by the resilient issues of fighting poverty and hunger, disease and climate change.

The 192-nation body was to begin the new session on Tuesday under the presidency of Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockman, a Roman Catholic priest from Nicaragua, the first time a clergyman will take the reins of the body dominated by non-aligned, Arab and Islamic countries.

New York  - Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc, the 158-year-old investment bank, has become the largest institution to fail in US history after a last-minute rescue fell apart over the weekend.

A legendary US institution, Lehman employs about 25,000 people and reported debts of more than 600 billion dollars as it filed for bankruptcy Monday in a Manhattan court.

Apart from its debts, Lehman was valued at about 637 billion dollars in its bankruptcy filing. Its share price plunged 95 per cent.

New York/Washington  - The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers Holdings and fears of more bank failures in the imminent future sent investors running for the hills on Monday, amid signs of a significant broadening of the US credit crisis.

News of the venerable Lehman Brothers' failure came hours after financial services firm Merrill Lynch & Co agreed to a takeover by Bank of America Corp - the product of a frantic weekend of talks.

New York - Bank of America Corp chief executive Kenneth Lewis on Monday said the acquisition of Merrill Lynch & Co left the banking giant best positioned to weather the financial storm that has engulfed Wall Street and is unlikely to end before 2010.

Lewis said the 50-billion-dollar takeover, which first came under discussion Saturday morning, had been the "strategic opportunity of a lifetime" despite one of the most difficult financial environments in US history.