AP - Lebanese militants fired rockets into northern Israel early Thursday, threatening to open a new front for the Jewish state as it pushed forward with its offensive in the Gaza Strip.

AP - President-elect Barack Obama said Thursday that the nation's recession could "linger for years" unless Congress acts to pump unprecedented sums from Washington into the U.S. economy, making his highest-profile case yet on an issue certain to define his early presidency.

AP - Illinois Republicans are promising tough questions Thursday for Senate-appointee Roland Burris on why he accepted a position offered by disgraced Gov. Rod Blagojevich and whether he promised the governor anything in return.

AP - Pink slips are piling higher as companies scramble to cut costs even deeper to survive the country's economic and financial storms.

AP - More than 30,000 people were urged to leave their flood-endangered western Washington homes as swollen rivers, mudslides and avalanches engulfed neighborhoods and roadways.

AP - The United States and its partners have shortchanged Afghanistan by focusing on short-term goals pursued without a cohesive strategy or a clear understanding of the way the poor, decentralized country works, an independent study concludes.

AP - Showing the emphasis that some lawmakers are putting on health care issues this year, former Sen. Tom Daschle will be the first of President-elect Barack Obama's Cabinet choices to undergo a hearing.

AP - Holy People's Choice Awards, Batman!

AP - Standing next to the crystal football, Bob Stoops was the picture of Mr. Agreeable. Any pose the photographers wanted, the Oklahoma coach gave them. Looking to the right, gazing to the left, smiling straight ahead. That is, until a shutterbug told Stoops to hold up one finger — a "we're No. 1" shot. No chance, pal.

Reuters - President-elect Barack Obama will seek Thursday to rally support for a massive fiscal stimulus package by warning that the United States could remain mired in recession for years without bold action.

Reuters - Several rockets fired from Lebanon struck northern Israel Thursday, slightly wounding two people, police and medics said, in attacks seen as linked to Israel's war on Hamas Islamists in the Gaza Strip.

Reuters - Citigroup forecast a synchronized global recession in 2009 and said developed economies may "flirt" with deflation while emerging market economies will slow sharply, adding that global corporate earnings were only a quarter of the way through an expected 50 percent drop.

Reuters - India vowed to strengthen laws to prevent corporate fraud after Satyam Computer, the country's fourth-largest software company, shocked investors by revealing profits had been falsely inflated for years.

Reuters - The two top gas executives from Russia and Ukraine held talks in Moscow on Thursday, in the first face-to-face contact since their row choked off supplies to EU countries in bitter winter weather.

Reuters - It took war, the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and the collapse of some of New York's famed investment banks, but Manhattan apartment prices are finally falling.

Reuters - Bleak export data from Europe's biggest economy and a wave of profit warnings and job cuts soured investor sentiment on Thursday after an employment report suggested U.S. job losses in December could be the worst in almost 60 years.

AFP - Rockets fired into northern Israel from Lebanon on Thursday jolted efforts to end the war in Gaza where Israeli jets carried out mass strikes on smuggling tunnels.

AFP - Israeli warplanes bombed suspected arms-smuggling tunnels in southern Gaza early Thursday, as diplomats worked to secure a ceasefire in an offensive that has killed 700 Palestinians.