WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Senate Finance Committee on Friday unanimously approved Janet Yellen's nomination as the first woman Treasury secretary, indicating that she will easily win full Senate approval, but Republicans called for her to work with them in developing economic policies.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. manufacturing activity surged to its highest level in nearly 14 years in early January, but bottlenecks in the supply chain caused by the COVID-19 pandemic are driving up prices and signaling a rise in inflation in the months ahead.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Dow and S&P 500 ended modestly lower on Friday, dragged down by losses in blue-chip technology stalwarts Intel and IBM following their quarterly results, as hopes for a full economic reopening in the coming months waned.

CALGARY/NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Keystone XL pipeline project may be dead, but the United States is still poised to pull in record imports of Canadian oil in coming years through other pipelines that are in the midst of expanding.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden on Friday ordered the faster issuance of pandemic stimulus checks to needy families and increased food aid for children who normally rely on school meals, an effort to ease Americans' burdens while Congress negotiates over his proposed $1.9 trillion economic stimulus package.

(Reuters) - Private equity firm TPG has entered into exclusive talks to acquire a minority stake in AT&T Inc's satellite TV division, DirecTV, in a deal that would allow the U.S. wireless carrier to trim its net debt of close to $150 billion, people familiar with the matter said on Friday.

(Reuters) - American depositary shares of RLX Technology Inc jumped 86% in their U.S. stock market debut on Friday, giving the Chinese vaping firm a market capitalization of nearly $35 billion.

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Brazilian miner Vale SA and state authorities narrowed their gap in a potential settlement deal over the Brumadinho mining disaster to 11 billion reais ($2 billion) before talks fell apart, a person close to the negotiations told Reuters on Friday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A bevy of major U.S. earnings reports next week led by Apple, Microsoft and Facebook could help technology and growth stocks reassert their dominance after a recent run by banks, energy and other potential beneficiaries of an economic reopening.