 AP - President-elect Barack Obama promised the voters change but has started his Cabinet selection process by naming several Washington insiders to top posts.
 AP - Pounded by a fierce financial crisis, the country is sinking deeper into economic despair and is likely to be in the hole well into next year, forcing more Americans into the ranks of the unemployed.
 AP - A plan to give troubled U.S. automakers billions of dollars in government-backed loans is on life support, leaving the fate of hundreds of thousands of workers and Detroit's once-venerable car companies hanging in the balance.
 AP - European and Asian stock markets tumbled Thursday after recession fears sent Wall Street plunging the day before.
 AP - With the Bush administration on the verge of relaxing regulations protecting endangered species, Democratic leaders are looking at ways to overturn any last-minute rule changes.
 AP - Astronauts vowed to double-check, even triple-check, to make sure a bag of tools is properly tied down during a spacewalk Thursday so it doesn't float away like one did earlier this week.
 AP - China announced a complete overhaul of its dairy industry Thursday to improve safety at every step — from cow breeding to milk sales — saying its worst food quality scandal in years had revealed "major problems" in quality control.
 AP - The economy hung like a cloud over the 59th annual National Book Awards. Barack Obama was the silver lining.
AP - Three male and three female inmates at a southern Indiana jail face charges that they devised a way to sneak between cell blocks to help pass their time behind bars by having sex.
 AP - The NFL is giving Adam "Pacman" Jones another chance. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said Wednesday the suspended cornerback has been reinstated by league commissioner Roger Goodell, but he must miss two more games — this Sunday and the following game on Thanksgiving. He'll be back Dec. 7 at Pittsburgh.
 Reuters - Global economic misery spread on Thursday with the Federal Reserve predicting U.S. recession well into 2009, Japan's exports to Asia falling for the first time in six years and job losses mounting.
 Reuters - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's top choice to lead the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, CNN reported on Wednesday, citing multiple sources.
 Reuters - World stocks dropped to 5-1/2 year lows and oil hit 22-month troughs as investors reacted to dire Federal Reserve warnings on the economy and fears about the viability of major U.S. auto makers and bank giant Citigroup.
 Reuters - Chances dimmed that a last-minute plan being crafted by Republican senators, with White House support, to provide $25 billion to bail out U.S. automakers would receive enough backing from Democrats to pass before the end of this week.
Reuters - A pact allowing U.S. troops to stay in Iraq for three more years has a chance of being approved by parliament despite some heated opposition, Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said on Thursday.
 Reuters - California's Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear a legal challenge against the state's voter-approved ban on gay marriage and let the ban stand in the meantime.
 Reuters - A Missouri woman established a fake identity online to torment a vulnerable teenage girl who later committed suicide, federal prosecutors said on Wednesday in a trial that is being closely watched by the burgeoning social networking industry.
 Reuters - Pakistan summoned U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson on Thursday to protest over missile strikes launched by pilotless drone aircraft against militant targets in Pakistan.
 AFP - Governments scrambled to cushion the impact of the finance crisis Thursday with France launching a sovereign wealth fund and China unveiling a jobs protection plan as the car industry made huge new cuts.
 AFP - Russia announced Thursday it would send more warships to combat piracy in the waters around Somalia, as the Saudi owners of the Sirius Star negotiated with the pirates holding their oil tanker.
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