 AP - President-elect Barack Obama intends to name Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Federal Reserve, as his treasury secretary to confront the nation's intense economic turmoil, senior Democratic officials said Friday.
 AP - Wall Street put a stop to a terrifying decline and stormed higher Friday as President-elect Barack Obama appeared ready to tap the chief of the New York Federal Reserve as the next treasury secretary and hand him the herculean task of righting the U.S. financial system.
 AP - While President-elect Barack Obama publicly sidelined himself during congressional debate over an auto industry bailout this week, he and his top aides quietly prodded congressional leaders to find a solution to rescue struggling automakers.
 AP - Gov. Dave Heineman signed into law Friday a bill adding a 30-day age limit to a safe-haven law that allowed 35 children — including teenagers as old as 17 — to be abandoned at state hospitals. The law, approved hours earlier by the Legislature in a 45-3 vote, goes into effect Saturday, and makes Nebraska the 14th state with a 30-day age cap. It had been the only state with a safe-haven law without an age limit.
 AP - Germany is dropping its pursuit of a ban on Scientology after finding insufficient evidence of illegal activity, security officials said Friday.
AP - A college student committed suicide by taking a drug overdose in front of a live webcam as some computer users egged him on, others tried to talk him out of it, and another messaged OMG in horror when it became clear it was no joke.
 AP - A county prosecutor who brought indictments this week against Vice President Dick Cheney and others pounded his fist and shouted at the judge Friday during a routine hearing. Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra asked Presiding Judge Manuel Banales to recuse himself from the case, which alleges abuse at federally run prisons.
 AP - Archaeologists have unearthed an elaborately decorated 1,800-year-old chariot sheathed in bronze at an ancient Thracian tomb in southeastern Bulgaria, the head of the excavation said Friday. "The lavishly ornamented four-wheel chariot dates back to the end of the second century A.D.," Veselin Ignatov told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from the site, near the southeastern village of Karanovo.
AP - Police have arrested a man suspected of leaving greasy, graphic imprints on the windows of stores, churches and schools in a small Nebraska town. A 35-year-old man was caught in the act by police early Wednesday morning, Cherry County Attorney Eric Scott said Friday. The man hasn't been charged yet, but authorities believe he is the vandal some townsfolk have dubbed the "Butt Bandit."
 AP - The Los Angeles Clippers filled their void in the post Friday, acquiring forward Zach Randolph and guard Mardy Collins from the New York Knicks for Cuttino Mobley and Tim Thomas.
 Reuters - President-elect Barack Obama on Friday moved toward nominating Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary and charging the respected head of the New York Federal Reserve with helping pull the United States out of an economic nosedive.
 Reuters - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama may consider Lawrence Summers as a successor to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, whose term expires in January 2010, a Democratic source told Reuters on Friday.
 Reuters - Detroit automakers began work on the turnaround plans demanded by Congress in return for a possible $25 billion rescue as General Motors Corp said it will cut production more deeply and drop two of its controversial corporate jets.
 Reuters - Citigroup Inc Chief Executive Vikram Pandit tried to downplay speculation the banking giant might sell major businesses to restore its health and investor confidence, but shares still tumbled for a fifth straight day.
 Reuters - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Friday the United States was trying to fill a request for additional combat brigades in Afghanistan next year and that he wanted at least some of the troops in place before the country's election next fall.
 Reuters - U.S. President George W. Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao planned to discuss North Korea's nuclear program on Friday evening as Asia Pacific leaders gathered for an annual economic summit amid the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.
 Reuters - Iran rejected Friday U.S. reports it had enriched enough uranium to make an atom bomb, saying this would require steps it had ruled out like ejecting U.N. inspectors and leaving the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
 Reuters - Dozens of Somali Islamist insurgents stormed a port on Friday hunting the pirates behind the seizure of a Saudi supertanker that was the world's biggest hijack, a local elder said.
 AFP - US President George W. Bush began Friday his last scheduled foreign trip, meeting the leader of increasingly important China ahead of a summit aimed at containing a spiraling financial crisis.
 AFP - Congo demanded a stronger mandate for UN troops in the conflict-torn east Friday, while residents of a squalid refugee camp said government soldiers killed a woman during a looting spree.
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