AP - Skittish employers slashed 533,000 jobs in November, the most in 34 years, catapulting the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent, dramatic proof the country is careening deeper into recession.

AP - News of a rapidly weakening job sent stocks falling Friday as investors feared that the recession will be deeper and more prolonged than many have expected. The major indexes were all down more than 1 percent and the Dow Jones industrials fell 180 points.

AP - Armed robbers — some disguised as women — snatched euro85 million ($108 million) worth of diamond rings, necklaces and luxury watches from a Harry Winston boutique on a posh Paris avenue in one of the largest jewel heists in history, officials said Friday.

AP - A record one in 10 American homeowners with a mortgage were either at least a month behind on their payments or in foreclosure at the end of September as the source of housing market pressure shifted to the crumbling U.S. economy.

AP - Stock intended to eventually earn taxpayers a profit as part of the Bush administration's massive bank bailout has lost a third of its value — about $9 billion — in barely one month, according to an Associated Press analysis. Shares in virtually every bank that received federal money have remained below the prices the government negotiated.

AP - A security pact that sets a timetable for troops to leave Iraq requires a shift in how the U.S. carries out combat missions during its remaining time in the country, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq said Friday.

AP - Congressional leaders seized on grim new unemployment data on Friday to try to rally support for a rescue plan of up to $34 billion for automakers. But while lawmakers pondered a range of options, including a government-run management board, no individual plan seemed to be gaining much traction.

AP - Oprah Winfrey tops The Hollywood Reporter's Power 100 list, an annual ranking of the most influential women in the entertainment industry.

AP - Sean Avery suddenly stopped talking and waited to hear if commissioner Gary Bettman's words would sting as much as those uttered by the NHL's most notorious pest.

Reuters - The U.S. auto industry's drive for a $34 billion emergency taxpayer bailout was stuck in neutral on Friday as the chief executives of Detroit's Big Three began a second day of testimony on Capitol Hill.

Reuters - President-elect Barack Obama has begun laying the groundwork for overhauling the troubled U.S. healthcare system, reaching out to interest groups and building grassroots support for the huge undertaking.

Reuters - India acknowledged the Mumbai attacks had uncovered security lapses but Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Friday evidence showed the strike originated on a neighbor's soil, a clear reference to Pakistan.

Reuters - China and the United States pledged on Friday to boost efforts to tackle the turmoil engulfing global markets and to continue high-level cooperation when President-elect Barack Obama takes office.

Reuters - Patriarch Alexiy II, a staunch conservative who revived Russia's Orthodox Church after the collapse of communism and forged close links with the Kremlin, died on Friday at the age of 79.

Reuters - A bomb blast in the Pakistani city of Peshawar on Friday killed at least 16 people and wounded 75, according to police and provincial government officials.

Reuters - Cuba's former leader Fidel Castro said on Thursday his country could talk to U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, in Havana's latest overture to the incoming Democratic administration in Washington.

AFP - The US economy lost a stunning 533,000 jobs in November and the unemployment rate jumped to a 15-year high of 6.7 percent, the Labor Department said Friday.

AFP - At least 15 people were killed and dozens more were wounded when a bomb ripped through a crowded marketplace in the northwestern Pakistan city of Peshawar, police said on Friday.