Washington  - US President Barack Obama announced a 2.4- billion-dollar plan Thursday to promote hybrid vehicles and reduce dependence on foreign oil.

The initiative allows companies to apply for grants administrated by the Department of Energy to develop better batteries for hybrid electric vehicles and related technologies and components.

Obama announced the plan while visiting electric power company Southern California Edison's electric vehicle centre in Pomona, just outside downtown Los Angeles.

Washington - Astronauts began work installing a crucial new solar panel on the International Space Station during a spacewalk on Thursday.

The panel is part of a truss segment that will complete the backbone of the station and boost its energy capacity, allowing the resident crew size to double to six astronauts.

US astronauts Steve Swanson and Richard Arnold left the safety of the ISS at 1714 GMT for the planned six-and-a-half hour spacewalk.

Washington  - Astronauts began work installing a crucial new solar panel on the International Space Station during a spacewalk on Thursday.

The panel is part of a truss segment that will complete the backbone of the station and boost its energy capacity, allowing the resident crew size to double to six astronauts.

US astronauts Steve Swanson and Richard Arnold left the safety of the ISS at 1714 GMT for the planned six-and-a-half hour spacewalk. They were to attach the segment to the backbone of the ISS with the help of ISS's motorized robotic arm.

Washington  - Spurred on by public ire over bonuses paid at firms that received government bail-outs, the US Congress Thursday was considering a 90-per-cent tax on executive bonus payments by companies receiving more than 5 billion dollars in federal funds.

The action, which the House of Representatives could vote on later Thursday, comes amidst furor over actions by American International Group (AIG), the world's largest insurance firm whose near failure in September 2008 helped push a teetering US financial system into rapid descent.

Washington  - The United States has deported to Austria an accused Nazi war criminal who settled in Wisconsin following World War II, the US Justice Department announced Thursday.

Josias Kumpf, 83, allegedly served as as guard as a member of the SS-Death Head division and participated in the November 3, 1943 massacre of 8,000 Jews at the Trawniki labour camp in Poland. He was also a guard at the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp in Germany.

Washington  - A key gauge of US economic performance fell in February after rising slightly in the previous month, according to a private research group on Thursday.

The New York-based Conference Board's index of 10 leading economic indicators slid 0.4 per cent on unemployment claims, weak stock markets and consumer confidence.

The increase in January was revised downward to 0.1 per cent, while December was revised to a decline of 0.1 per cent from an earlier increase.