IN BRIEF

WASHINGTON

Paulson assures public about banking system

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson sought to reassure an anxious public Sunday that the banking system is sound, while also bracing people for more troubled times ahead.

"I think it's going to be months that we're working our way through this period -- clearly months," he said.

Paulson said the number of troubled banks will increase as they struggle to cope with big losses on bad mortgages. The government this month took over IndyMac after a run led it to become the largest regulated thrift to fail.

Paulson used appearances on the Sunday talk shows to tell people that deposits up to $100,000 are fully insured. He said no one has lost a single penny on an insured deposit in the 75 years that the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has operated.

"We're going through a challenging time with our economy. This is a tough time. The three big issues we're facing right now are, first, the housing correction which is at the heart of the slowdown; secondly, turmoil of the capital markets; and thirdly, the high oil prices, which are going to prolong the slowdown," he said.

Paulson said he hoped Congress soon would approve his plan to help shore up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage companies

The House plans to vote Wednesday on a housing bill that is expected to include a rescue for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The companies' shares have plummeted because of fears about their financial stability. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are private, but they were created by Congress to encourage homeownership by buying mortgages from banks. The two hold or guarantee more than $5 trillion in home loans.

NEW YORK

Facebook to unveil new profile pages

The popular online hangout Facebook is sporting a new look to reflect changes in how its members communicate with each other and how they share photos and updates about their lives.

Central to the redesign, to be unveiled today, is an expanded Wall, the section of a member's personal profile page where friends can leave comments and photos. People will now be able to add items more easily, and the Wall will incorporate reports on a user's activities previously found on a user's "Mini-Feed."

The development comes as Facebook and rival MySpace from News Corp. vie to become the central hub of online communications. Both sites are reorganizing their layouts this summer to reduce clutter and make information easier to find.

Facebook, trying to avoid the type of privacy backlash that has accompanied major changes in the past, said it has been alerting users of the changes in recent weeks. The site first outlined the facelift in May and plans to let users start testing it this week. A complete switch won't occur for at least another week or two.

The changes stem from the growing comfort people have with sharing details about their personal lives more frequently and in smaller bursts -- such as on the "microblogging" site Twitter.

Instead of creating a full photo album or blog entry, Facebook users are apt to share just a single image or update the one-sentence status message on their profile, said Mark Slee, lead product manager at Facebook. On top of that, Facebook profiles are loaded with information generated from games and other applications that Facebook started letting outside developers write last year.

The Facebook redesign seeks to make these now-disparate pieces of information easier to find at a central location. Now the site will organize information into tabs to reduce clutter.