Reuters - The world's leading economies, including emerging powers like China, agreed on Saturday on the need to take measures to stimulate growth and fight off the threat of a global recession.

Reuters - Dangerous Hurricane Paloma made landfall near Santa Cruz del Sur in southeastern Cuba on Saturday as a Category 3 storm with 125 mile-per-hour (200-kph) winds, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

AP - Police in this small eastern Arizona community are looking into the possibility that an 8-year-old boy who is charged with killing his father and another man with a rifle had been abused, the police chief said Saturday.

AP - Indonesia executed three Islamic militants Saturday for helping plan and carry out the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, many of them foreign tourists.

AP - International rescue teams joined the search for survivors Saturday in the rubble of a Haitian school that collapsed on classrooms filled with students and teachers, killing at least 75 people.

Reuters - Indonesia executed three Muslim militants for the 2002 Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people on the resort island, the attorney-general's office said on Sunday.

AP - At Ford Motor Co. they called it "Blue," a team set up around the year 2000 to design an array of small, fuel-efficient cars to compete with the Japanese. It didn't get far because no one could figure out how to make money on low-priced compacts with Ford's high labor costs.

AFP - The United Nations accused rebels and pro-government militia Saturday of war crimes in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, as government troops reinforced their front-line positions.

AFP - Three Islamists sentenced to death for the Bali bombings which killed 202 people were executed by firing squad early Sunday morning, after five years of legal challenges.

AP - All presidents are tested. Few walk into the Oval Office when the nation is in the throes of multiple crises.

AP - A top Iraqi official warned Saturday that time is running out to sign a new security agreement with Washington, saying the country still needed U.S. troops despite improved security.

AP - A contractor who found $182,000 in Depression-era currency hidden in a bathroom wall has ended up with only a few thousand dollars, but he feels some vindication.

Reuters - The death toll in the collapse of a ramshackle school in Haiti rose to at least 82 on Saturday when rescue workers uncovered a room with 21 dead, many of them children, officials said.

AP - A group of New Yorkers is fighting to save Tin Pan Alley, the half-dozen row houses where iconic American songs were born.

Reuters - Barack Obama said on Saturday that, with the long U.S. presidential election campaign over, now was the time for Americans to put aside political differences and work together to solve the economic crisis.

Reuters - Sales of rifles, pistols and ammo are surging in parts of the United States, as many gun owners fear President-elect Barack Obama's administration may seek to tighten ownership of certain weapons.

AP - When 10-year-old Austin Smith heard Barack Obama had been elected president, he had one question: Does this mean I won't get a new gun for Christmas?

AP - High in the mist-shrouded Mushaki mountains, amid a drenching tropical storm, the rebel leader swept into the crumbling brick farmhouse, his sinewy frame swathed in a red-and-black shawl — dutifully followed by a pet lamb called Betty.

Reuters - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama said on Friday the United States was facing one of its greatest economic challenges and vowed to confront the crisis head-on as soon as he takes office in January.

AP - Buyers returned to Wall Street Friday after two days of heavy losses, mindful of the economy's growing problems but attracted by stocks' lower prices. Analysts said the advance was to be expected as Wall Street experiences a rocky recovery from October's devastating selling.

AP - A hillside school where roughly 500 students usually crowded into several floors collapsed during classes on Friday, killing at least 30 people and injuring many more. Rescuers used bare hands to pull bleeding students from the wreckage.

AP - Inheriting an economy in peril, President-elect Obama warned on Friday that the nation faces the challenge of a lifetime and pledged he would act urgently to help Americans devastated by lost jobs, disappearing savings and homes seized in foreclosure. But the man who promised change cautioned against hopes of quick solutions.

AFP - US President-elect Barack Obama on Friday said he would act "swiftly" as soon as he takes office to confront the economic crisis head on, during his first news conference since his historic election.

AP - Reports that Angolan troops joined Congolese soldiers battling rebels near the city of Goma raised new fears the conflict could spread in the region, but the U.N. chief holding a peace conference in nearby Nairobi denied the reports.

AP - In his preparation to become president, Barack Obama said Friday that he has had discussions with all former presidents — or almost all of them.

Reuters - U.S. gross domestic product will drop sharply in the fourth quarter, but hard-hit housing prices may start to stabilize in the first half of next year, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said on Friday.

AFP - A crisis summit on eastern DR Congo called for an immediate ceasefire Friday and the creation of humanitarian corridors amid fresh fighting on the ground and a warning by UN chief Ban Ki-moon that the conflict could spread.

Reuters - The unemployment rate shot to a 14-1/2 year high last month as employers slashed jobs by an unexpectedly steep 240,000, suggesting President-elect Barack Obama will face a deep recession when he takes office.

AP - General Motors Corp. reported a $2.5 billion loss in the third quarter and warned Friday that it could run out of cash in 2009 if the U.S. economic slump continues and it doesn't get government aid.

Reuters - Senior U.S. diplomats held substantive talks with a North Korean official about moving forward with the process of North Korea abandoning its nuclear programs, the State Department said on Friday.

Reuters - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is considering "all options" regarding implementation of the $700 billion financial rescue plan, including areas of the financial sector beyond traditional banks, a senior Treasury official said on Friday.

Reuters - General Motors Corp and Ford Motor Co reported far deeper-than-expected quarterly losses on Friday and said their rate of cash burn had accelerated, as an extended slump in car sales raised questions about the future of the U.S. auto industry.

Reuters - Iran said Friday EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana had urged the Islamic state to hold fresh talks to remove remaining concerns over its disputed nuclear program, the students' news agency ISNA reported.

AP - The nation's unemployment rate bolted to a 14-year high of 6.5 percent in October as another 240,000 jobs were cut, far worse than economists expected and stark proof the economy is deteriorating at an alarmingly rapid pace.

AP - The Bush administration, in the midst of a wide review of its war strategy in Afghanistan, is likely to recommend soon to the incoming Obama administration that the U.S. push for further expansion of the Afghan army as the surest path to an eventual U.S. withdrawal, The Associated Press has learned.

AP - Carlos Pena grabbed attention for all those balls he hit. Now the Tampa Bay first baseman and his teammates are getting noticed for the ones he caught.

AP - Colleagues of a Barack Obama campaign worker from California have identified him as the man whose shoulder Oprah Winfrey cried on during an Election Day rally in Chicago. Co-worker Karen Wark says the man in pictures is Sam Perry, who worked at the Silicon Valley for Obama office. Wark couldn't give other details about Perry or his trip to Chicago.

AP - The U.S. government arrested and deported record numbers of illegal immigrants — nearly 350,000 — in the past year, authorities say. It has also naturalized a record number of new Americans during the same time period, more than 1 million. Bush administration officials consider these to be great accomplishments within a system that President-elect Obama calls "broken and overwhelmed" on his transition Web site.