News In Brief

Continental Illinois Bank getting $2 billion in aid

Federal regulators and major banks will give the troubled Continental Illinois National Bank & Trust Company of Chicago $2 billion in financial aid, it was announced Thursday. The bank is the nation's seventh largest.

In Chicago, bank chairman David G. Taylor said the bank's officers were considering the possibility of merging with another institution. ''And we are already taking steps to start this process.'' He did not elaborate.