Senior House Democrats have largely abandoned hopes of including a government-run insurance option in the final compromise health care bill taking shape, according to several officials, and are pushing for other measures to rein in private insurers.

Gunmen attacked a Chevron Corp. oil pipeline in Nigeria’s restive Niger Delta, causing an unknown amount of damage, a government spokesman said Saturday.

His agenda altered by the Christmas bombing attempt, President Barack Obama pivoted back to the domestic economy on Friday, promoting new U.S. spending to create tens of thousands of clean-technology jobs.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will face a congressional grilling later this month about the suppression of details on deals that funneled billions to big investment banks while he was president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

President Hugo Chavez announced a currency devaluation Friday for the first time since 2005, setting a two-tiered exchange rate designed to help Venezuela’s oil earnings go farther domestically while holding down prices of priority imports like food to counter soaring inflation.

His agenda altered by the Christmas bombing attempt, President Barack Obama pivoted back to the domestic economy on Friday, promoting new U.S. spending to create tens of thousands of clean-technology jobs.

Regulators shut Horizon Bank in Bellingham, Wash., on Friday, the first bank closing of 2010. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said that Seattle-based Washington Federal Savings and Loan Association has agreed to take on the deposits of Horizon Bank and to purchase essentially all of the bank’s assets.