AP - New claims for unemployment benefits jumped last week to a 16-year high, the Labor Department said Thursday, providing more evidence of a rapidly weakening job market expected to get even worse next year.

AP - Democratic officials say that Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano is a leading contender for the job of secretary of homeland security in President-elect Barack Obama's administration.

AP - Fresh worries about widening unemployment added to investors' long list of concerns about the fate of Detroit's three automakers and the broader economy. The concerns weighed on stock market futures a day after stocks fell more than 5 percent.

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.

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.

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.

AP - Rapper 50 Cent is facing a challenge to his street cred — from Taco Bell. Lawyers for the fast-food chain are calling his federal lawsuit, filed in Manhattan, another attempt to "burnish his gangsta rapper persona by distorting beyond all recognition a bona fide, good faith offer."

AP - The NFL is giving Adam "Pacman" Jones another chance. Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said Wednesday the suspended cornerback has been reinstated by league commissioner Roger Goodell, but he must miss two more games — this Sunday and the following game on Thanksgiving. He'll be back Dec. 7 at Pittsburgh.

Reuters - The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits surged last week to their highest level in 16 years, Labor Department data showed on Thursday, as a harsh economic environment forces employers to cut back on hiring.

Reuters - World economic misery spread on Thursday with forecasts of a global recession running well into 2009, Japan's exports to Asia falling for the first time in six years and job losses mounting.

Reuters - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's top choice to lead the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, CNN reported on Wednesday, citing multiple sources.

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.

Reuters - California's Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear a legal challenge against the state's voter-approved ban on gay marriage and let the ban stand in the meantime.

Reuters - A Missouri woman established a fake identity online to torment a vulnerable teenage girl who later committed suicide, federal prosecutors said on Wednesday in a trial that is being closely watched by the burgeoning social networking industry.

AFP - Governments scrambled to cushion the impact of the finance crisis Thursday with France launching a sovereign wealth fund and China unveiling a jobs protection plan as the car industry made huge new cuts.

AFP - Russia announced Thursday it would send more warships to combat piracy in the waters around Somalia, as the Saudi owners of the Sirius Star negotiated with the pirates holding their oil tanker.