Washington  - A gun-wielding 16-year-old Canadian who tried to hold a pastor and 300 students at his former school hostage on Tuesday was arrested and the incident ended peacefully, police said.

The boy, a former student of the Luther College High School in Regina, threatened the pastor at the daily chapel service that was attended by about 300 students, Canadian broadcaster CBC reported.

Washington  - US stocks dropped Tuesday by more than 1 per cent, in the worst two-day slump in six years on concern that Congress won't act fast enough to adopt the government's 700-billion- dollar bank rescue plan that the central bank head says is direly needed to avoid a recession.

Hardest hit companies included General Motors Corp, department store chain Dillard's Inc and Regions Financial Corp, which tumbled more than 7 per cent. Members of the Senate banking committee Tuesday were sceptical over US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's plan.

Washington  - The US treasury secretary and central bank head Thursday outlined details of a historic finance rescue plan that would help healthy finance firms and banks in addition to propping up weak or troubled companies.

Speaking before the US Senate banking committee, Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve chair Ben Bernanke described a broad- based plan that would purchase bad mortgage debts and complex mortgage-related-securities-gone-sour from mostly successful banks and investment houses.

Washington  - The solar wind is at a 50-year low, potentially opening up the solar system to more dangerous rays from outer space, researchers said Tuesday.

Data from the joint NASA and European Space Agency Ulysses solar mission show the cyclical wind - as the plasma and magnetic fields sent out by the sun are called - are at their lowest level since scientists first gathered information on the matter.

Washington  - The United States called on Myanmar to release all political prisoners, but welcomed the freeing Tuesday of the longest-held dissident and thousands of others who had been locked up.

US State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood said the release of 76-year-old journalist U Win Tin, who had been held for nearly 20 years, was "long overdue, but a very positive development."

U Win Tin was one of 9,002 prisoners released in a general amnesty.

Washington  - The treasury secretary and head of the US central bank sought Tuesday to convince a key Senate panel to act rapidly and adopt a mammoth White House rescue plan for the nation's finance system.

Members of the Senate banking committee expressed anger at the prospect of being forced to act by week's end and outrage at bailing out Wall Street risk takers. But they also acknowledged the urgency of the issue.