 AP - President-elect Barack Obama is likely to name Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Federal Reserve, as Treasury Secretary in a time of intense economic turmoil as he rounds out the upper echelon of his Cabinet, a senior Democratic official familiar with the deliberations said Friday.
 AP - Wall Street is ending a volatile week with an unexpected jolt of confidence following reports that President-elect Barack Obama plans to name New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary. The major indexes have jumped more than 5 percent, with the Dow Jones industrials surging nearly 500 points.
 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 - Chanting "no to America," supporters of a radical Shiite cleric burned an effigy of President George W. Bush Friday in a protest demanding parliament scuttle a U.S.-Iraqi security pact and American troops begin withdrawing from Iraq immediately.
 AP - Law enforcement officials bracing for the largest crowds in inaugural history are preparing far-reaching security — thousands of video cameras, sharpshooters, air patrols — to safeguard President-elect Barack Obama's swearing-in.
AP - A South Florida college student killed himself by overdosing on drugs in front of a live online audience as some computer users egged him on, some debated his method, and others tried to talk him out of it.
 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 - Authorities said they've arrested a suspect in the rash of so-called "Butt Bandit" vandalism cases. County Attorney Eric Scott said a 35-year-old man was arrested early Wednesday morning. Formal charges have not yet been filed. Some vandal had been skipping from one building to another at night, pressing his naked buttocks, groin or both on windows.
 AP - The Golden State Warriors traded disgruntled forward Al Harrington to the Knicks for guard Jamal Crawford on Friday in a swap that addresses both the Warriors' injury problems and New York's salary cap concerns. "I drafted Al back in 1998, and I think his talents are a great fit for our style of play," Knicks president Donnie Walsh said in announcing the deal in a statement. "This trade also gives us more long-term flexibility while enabling us to remain competitive this season."
 Reuters - President-elect Barack Obama has selected Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary, charging the respected head of the New York Federal Reserve with pulling the United States out of an economic nosedive, NBC news reported 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 shares tumbled for a fifth straight day, as Chief Executive Vikram Pandit tried to downplay speculation the banking giant might sell major businesses to restore its health and investor confidence.
 Reuters - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Friday he expected to move five combat brigades into Afghanistan next year and wanted at least some of them in place before the country's election next fall, stressing this was a top priority.
 Reuters - George W. Bush headed on Friday to an Asia-Pacific summit aiming to seek support for global financial reform and hold talks on ending North Korea's nuclear program as his presidency winds down.
 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 - Unknown assailants launched an attack on the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline between Iraq and Turkey on Friday, triggering a large fire, broadcaster CNN Turk reported.
 Reuters - President George W. Bush on Friday signed into law an extension of unemployment benefits, the White House 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's government demanded a stronger mandate for UN peacekeepers in the conflict-torn east Friday, while residents of a squalid refugee camp said soldiers killed a woman during a looting spree.
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