AP - With no end in sight to economic bad news, President George W. Bush on Friday ensured that millions of laid-off workers will keep getting their unemployment checks as the year-end holidays approach.

AP - Attorney General Michael Mukasey was conscious and alert early Friday — and took a get-well call from President Bush — just hours after he collapsed during a speech to a black-tie dinner.

AP - Wall Street found some relief Friday from a report that a pounded-down Citigroup Inc. might put itself up for sale. That prospect, along with the possibility that low prices will draw in bargain-hunters after two days of steep selling, sent stock futures sharply higher.

AP - Followers of a Shiite cleric on Friday stomped on and burned an effigy of President George W. Bush in the same central Baghdad square where Iraqis beat a toppled statue of Saddam Hussein with their sandals five years earlier.

AP - Somali pirates have collected more than $150 million in ransoms over the past year, Kenya's foreign affairs minister said Friday, calling on ship owners not pay when their vessels are hijacked.

AP - President-elect Barack Obama plans to nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state after Thanksgiving, a new milestone for the former first lady and a convergence of two political forces who fought hard for the presidency.

AP - As more Americans turn to charity amid worsening economic gloom, operators of food banks and other aid groups are relying on the surprisingly resilient generosity of their neighbors and finding that even when times are tough, people still give.

AP - The show-business marriage that began in a Scottish castle came to an end in a drab London courtroom Friday as Madonna and Guy Ritchie were granted a preliminary decree of divorce.

AP - Ben Roethlisberger and the Pittsburgh Steelers know exactly how to beat the Cincinnati Bengals — with or without Chad Ocho Cinco.

Reuters - Retired Marine Gen. James Jones emerged as a leading contender for White House national security adviser as President-elect Barack Obama worked on Thursday to assemble his foreign policy team.

Reuters - Euro zone demand is plunging and price pressures vanishing, business surveys showed on Friday, while central bankers weighed the bleak prospect of deflation.

Reuters - President George W. Bush spoke with U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey on Friday and the top U.S. law enforcement official sounded well after collapsing during a speech, the White House said.

Reuters - President George W. Bush on Friday signed into law an extension of unemployment benefits, the White House said.

Reuters - Followers of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr marched on Friday against a pact letting U.S. forces stay in Iraq until 2011, toppling an effigy of President George W. Bush where U.S. troops once tore down a statue of Saddam Hussein.

Reuters - Citigroup Inc lost more than one-quarter of its market value on growing worries over whether it has enough capital to withstand billions of dollars of potential losses and despite new support from its largest individual investor.

Reuters - Verizon Wireless said on Thursday that some employees had gained unauthorized access and viewed a personal cell phone account held by President-elect Barack Obama that is now inactive.

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 - The use of nuclear weapons will grow increasingly likely by 2025, according to a bleak US intelligence report that warns that US global dominance is likely to weaken over the next two decades.

AFP - Thousands of Shiite followers of the firebrand anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr gathered in Baghdad on Friday to protest a security accord that would allow US troops to remain in Iraq until 2011.