Yahoo! News: Top Stories
Top Stories
President-elect promised change, picking insiders
(AP)
AP - President-elect Barack Obama promised the voters change but has started his Cabinet selection process by naming several Washington insiders to top posts.
Fed sees economic woes persisting into next year
(AP)
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.
Detroit automakers' rescue stalls in Senate
(AP)
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.
Global markets extend rout on recession fears
(AP)
AP - World stock markets tumbled Thursday, with benchmarks in Tokyo and Seoul losing almost 7 percent each, after recession fears sent Wall Street plunging and Japan suffered its biggest drop in exports in seven years.
Dems look to stop endangered species rule changes
(AP)
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.
Astronauts vow remaining tool bag won't drift away
(AP)
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.
China to overhaul battered dairy industry
(AP)
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.
Matthiessen wins National Book Award fiction prize
(AP)
AP - The economy hung like a cloud over the 59th annual National Book Awards. Barack Obama was the silver lining.
Ind. inmates sneak through ceiling to have sex
(AP)
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.
Gay advocates upset at shelving of Chicago school
(AP)
AP - As far as Miguel Garcia is concerned, Chicago already has a gay high school. Jones College Prep, where the 16-year-old is a junior, has the city's largest Gay Straight Alliance, an organization of more than 100 students that he and other members say wields considerable influence at their downtown campus.
Prolonged recession looms
(Reuters)
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 another sharp sell-off on global equity markets.
Global stocks at 5-1/2 year lows
(Reuters)
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.
Prospect for auto bailout dims
(Reuters)
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.
Financials need at least $1 trillion: analyst
(Reuters)
Reuters - The U.S. financial system still needs at least $1 trillion to $1.2 trillion of tangible common equity to restore confidence and improve liquidity in the credit markets, Friedman Billings Ramsey analyst Paul Miller said.
U.S. pact can pass Iraqi parliament: minister
(Reuters)
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.
