Washington  - Some of the nation's top bank chiefs told President Barack Obama Friday that they would work with him towards the economic recovery, and agreed on the need for an overhaul of financial market regulations.

"Were all in this together," John Stumpf, the head of Wells Fargo & Co, was quoted as saying by Bloomberg financial news service after the meeting. "Were trying to do the right thing for America."

New York  - The cultural clone of shamed financial scammer Bernard Madoff has been arrested and charged after help from former tennis great John McEnroe, who reportedly lost 2 million dollars in a fine art fraud.

Mac got mad and then got even after bankrupt Lawrence Salander sold him and others shares in paintings the gallery dealer didn't actually own.

Local media reported that art-mad Mac paid up the big bucks in 2004 for a 50 percent interest in two paintings by abstract expressionist Arshile Gorky, Pirate I and Pirate II.

San Francisco/Fargo, North Dakota  - Residents of North Dakota's largest metropolitan area were evacuating Friday as the Red River roared to its highest ever level and a crack appeared on a crucial sandbag dike.

The US Army Corps of Engineers was building a secondary dike behind the compromised barrier that sprang a leak as the river, which runs from Canada through Minnesota and North Dakota, rose to record- breaking 12.22 metres.

Hluboka Castle, Czech Republic  - The European Union on Friday welcomed US President Barack Obama's revised strategy for Afghanistan and vowed to contribute to a "civilian surge" with more money and more trainers.

"(We heard) a very important speech, a very important analysis ... we have a lot of points in common," the EU's top foreign policy official, Javier Solana, told the German Press Agency dpa on the sidelines of a meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers in the Czech Republic.

Kabul - An Afghan army soldier killed two US-led coalition soldiers and wounded a third before shooting himself to death in northern Afghanistan on Friday, the US military said.

"One coalition service member was killed today, another died of wounds, and a third was wounded by an Afghan National Army soldier who reportedly fired upon them," the US military said in statement, adding that the Afghan soldier killed himself immediately after the shooting.

Islamabad - Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on Friday welcomed the initiatives announced by his US counterpart Barack Obama to strengthen democracy and "pass a bill for 1.5 billion dollars aid to Pakistan every year."

"Pakistan has always held the Pak-US relations in high esteem and his announcements during the speech on a new strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan will further cement these ties," Zardari said in a statement, according to the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan.