AP - Hundreds of thousands of revelers rang in 2009 from frigid Times Square as the famous Waterford crystal ball dropped, signaling the end of a historic and troubled year that saw the election of the first black U.S. president and the worst economic crisis in decades.

AP - Time Warner Cable Inc. said Wednesday it reached a deal with Viacom Inc. on carriage fees, avoiding a blackout of 19 cable channels including MTV and Comedy Central.

AP - Shoppers won't be picking up ornate lamps from the Bombay Co. in the coming year. Or investing with Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns. No flying to Hawaii on Aloha Airlines or buying ultra-cheap tickets on Skybus, either.

AP - A raid that resulted in the seizure of 189 English shepherds from a crowded kennel also turned up 10 frozen dog carcasses and a dead dog found beside the breeder's bed, authorities said Wednesday.

AP - Scott Brooks figured his Oklahoma City Thunder team had been in enough close games in the fourth quarter to eventually win one. Their time came Wednesday night.

AP - Israeli jets bombed the Palestinian parliament building in Gaza early Thursday and navy ships opened fire at Hamas positions along the coastline as diplomatic pressure to end six days of devastating violence showed little immediate effect.

AP - A suspected U.S. missile strike by a drone aircraft destroyed a vehicle in northwest Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least three foreign militants, said intelligence officials.

AP - By insisting that Hamas go first in any cease-fire with Israel, the Bush administration is sticking to its support for the Jewish state's right of self-defense while stopping short of encouraging an Israeli ground assault aimed at fully reoccupying the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

AP - A Malaysian military helicopter saved an Indian tanker from being hijacked Thursday, foiling the new year's first attack by pirates in the dangerous Gulf of Aden off the chaotic African nation of Somalia, an official said.

AP - Much of downtown Aspen was evacuated and New Year's Eve celebrations canceled after suspicious packages were found at two banks.

AP - Roland Burris is battling for a U.S. Senate seat in court and through the media, briefly shifting the spotlight away from the man who picked him for the job, embattled Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

AP - Toyota Motor Corp. is secretly developing a vehicle that will be powered solely by solar energy in an effort to turn around its struggling business with a futuristic ecological car, a top business daily reported Thursday.

AFP - Revellers rang in the New Year in the Americas, hard on the heels of celebrations in Europe and Asia, as global economic jitters, conflict in the Middle East and tragedy in Thailand cast a long shadow on the dawn of 2009.

AFP - The New Year in Gaza began Thursday with air strikes as Israeli jets pounded Hamas targets for a sixth day, while the Islamists vowed to fight to the end and the death toll from the blitz hit 400.

AP - Israel demanded international monitors as a term of any truce with Gaza militants, as its warplanes bombed the parliament building in Gaza City Thursday and its ships attacked coastline positions of the territory's Islamic Hamas rulers.

AP - Russian gas monopoly Gazprom said it cut all gas supplies to Ukraine on Thursday morning after talks broke down over payments for past shipments and a price for 2009.

AP - Albert Aragon dreams of working in real estate one day, but the 29-year-old jail inmate is a high school dropout who believes employers don't hire people with general equivalency diplomas.

AP - Thousands of campers and revelers gathered along the Rose Parade route before the first dawn of 2009, eagerly awaiting the floral floats that will proceed down Colorado Boulevard escorted by marching bands and well-groomed horses on New Year's Day.

Reuters - Foreign troops suffered their highest death toll in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2008, and with thousands more troops scheduled to be deployed, this year could be even worse.

Reuters - Russia said on Thursday it had cut off gas to its neighbor Ukraine over a contract dispute but had increased supplies to customers in the rest of Europe.

AFP - Russia has halted its supply of natural gas to Ukraine, a Gazprom spokesman confirmed Thursday.

AP - The United States handed over control of the Green Zone and Saddam Hussein's presidential palace to Iraqi authorities on Thursday in a ceremonial move described by the country's prime minister as a restoration of Iraq's sovereignty.

AP - Despite months of economic gloom, revelers throughout the country welcomed the new year with merrymaking and even optimism, though some festivities fell to hard times and others remained subdued.

AP - Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom cut all natural gas supplies to Ukraine on Thursday morning after talks broke down over payments for past shipments and a new energy price contract for 2009.

AP - Authorities say they're looking for a former Aspen resident after a bomb scare effectively shut down this resort town on New Year's Eve, one of its busiest nights of the year.

Reuters - India said on Thursday the FBI had presented strong evidence to Islamabad of Pakistani links to November's militant attacks in Mumbai that killed 179 people.

Reuters - Viacom and Time Warner Cable reached an agreement in principle on Thursday that avoided a blackout that would have prevented more than 13 million U.S. subscribers from seeing popular TV shows like 'Dora the Explorer' and 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.'

AFP - Russia halted supply of natural gas to Ukraine on Thursday after the two ex-Soviet neighbors failed to agree on payment terms, sparking fresh concerns about the security of energy resources controlled by Moscow.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel killed a senior Hamas leader in an air attack on his home on Thursday, striking its first deadly blow against the top ranks of the Islamist group in a Gaza offensive that has claimed more than 400 Palestinian lives.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India said on Thursday the FBI had presented strong evidence to Islamabad of Pakistani links to November's militant attacks in Mumbai that killed 179 people.

MOSCOW/KIEV (Reuters) - Russia cut off the gas to its neighbor Ukraine on Thursday after a contract dispute but increased supplies to other European states to try to reassure customers worried about possible disruption.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Viacom and Time Warner Cable reached an agreement in principle on Thursday that avoided a blackout that would have prevented more than 13 million U.S. subscribers from seeing popular TV shows like 'Dora the Explorer' and 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.'

KABUL (Reuters) - Foreign troops suffered their highest death toll in the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2008, and with thousands more troops scheduled to be deployed, this year could be even worse.

AP - Hamas says one of its top figures has been killed in an Israeli airstrike.

AP - It was billed as a New Year's Eve blowout and a last-night celebration of the wildly popular, classy nightclub before it moved to a new location. 'Goodbye Santika,' the promotion poster read.

AP - South African anti-apartheid activist Helen Suzman, who won international acclaim as one of the few white lawmakers to fight against the injustices of racist rule, died Thursday. She was 91.

AP - Three bombs exploded in India's restive northeast Thursday, killing at least five people and wounding 50, about an hour before the nation's top security official arrived in the area.

AP - Police in Aspen, Colorado say a man they wanted to question in two bomb threats that forced the evacuation of much of downtown on New Year's Eve has been found dead.

Reuters - Israel killed a senior Hamas leader in an air attack on his home on Thursday, striking its first deadly blow against the top ranks of the Islamist group in a Gaza offensive that has claimed more than 400 Palestinian lives.

Reuters - Russia cut off the gas to its neighbor Ukraine on Thursday after a contract dispute but increased supplies to other European states to try to reassure customers worried about possible disruption.

AFP - Israel launched dozens of New Year air and sea strikes Thursday on Gaza, killing a senior Hamas leader as the death toll from their six-day-old blitz spiralled above 400.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces in Iraq came under an Iraqi mandate on Thursday, an event the country's leader said had finally restored Iraq's sovereignty nearly six years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said on Thursday that the United States would need help to close down the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for terrorism suspects but refused to say if it would agree to resettle inmates with no links to Britain.

AP - Israel assassinated a Hamas strongman Thursday in its first assault on the top leadership of Gaza's rulers, escalating a crushing aerial offensive even as it declared it was ready to launch a ground invasion.

AP - Taliban militants ambushed a group of Afghan police while they were eating lunch in a remote and dangerous part of southern Afghanistan, killing 20 officers and one of the policeman's mother, an Afghan official said Thursday. A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmadi, said two Taliban were killed and four wounded during the ambush. Ahmadi claimed 32 police were killed, but that number had not been confirmed by Afghan officials.

AP - Fifty years after triumphant armed rebels descended from the eastern mountains, communist Cuba celebrated the revolution's anniversary Thursday with toned-down festivities after a trio of devastating hurricanes and under the enduring public absence of an ailing Fidel Castro.

AP - Somali pirates seized an Egyptian cargo ship and its 28 crewmembers on Thursday while a Malaysian military helicopter saved an Indian tanker from being hijacked in the new year's first attacks by pirates in the dangerous Gulf of Aden.

AP - A man wanted for questioning after two banks received bomb threats and suspicious packages in holiday wrapping was found dead early Thursday, police said. The threats shut down this resort town on New Year's Eve, one of its busiest nights of the year as the evacuation stretched into the new year.

AP - A new study of pygmy killer whales — one of the least understood marine mammal species — shows that those living off Hawaii tend to stay close to the islands and don't swim out to the open ocean.

AP - A man who reportedly told police he was trying to deter a friend from driving drunk by blasting the friend's windshield with paintballs wound up in jail. In the words of Kennewick, Wash., police Sgt. Ken Lattin: 'This is a very creative way to prevent someone from drinking and driving, but not legal or safe.'

AP - Win or lose at the Rose Bowl, senior Derrick Williams has accomplished what he set out to do when he arrived at Penn State.

Reuters - U.S. forces in Iraq came under an Iraqi mandate on Thursday, an event the country's leader said had finally restored Iraq's sovereignty nearly six years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

Reuters - Britain said on Thursday that the United States would need help to close down the Guantanamo Bay prison camp for terrorism suspects but refused to say if it would agree to resettle inmates with no links to Britain.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel killed a senior Hamas leader in an air attack on his home on Thursday, striking its first deadly blow against the top ranks of the Islamist group in a Gaza offensive that has claimed more than 400 Palestinian lives.

AP - The U.S. formally transferred control of the Green Zone to Iraqi authorities Thursday in a pair of ceremonies that also handed back Saddam Hussein's former palace.

AP - Afghanistan's southern rim, the Taliban's spiritual birthplace and the country's most violent region, has for the last two years been the domain of British, Canadian and Dutch soldiers.

AP - The threat that shut down this resort town on New Year's Eve was real:

AP - Before donning the Santa Claus suit that would disarm his first victim, Bruce Pardo spent months plotting his Christmas Eve massacre behind a mask of friendliness that fooled his neighbors, lawyer and the ex-wife he killed along with eight of her kin.

Reuters - Israel killed a senior Hamas leader in an air attack on his home on Thursday, striking its first deadly blow against the top ranks of the Islamist group in a Gaza offensive that has claimed more than 400 Palestinian lives.

AFP - Israel killed a top Hamas commander on Thursday in the biggest blow yet against the Islamist leadership as dozens more air strikes on Gaza took the death toll from the six-day blitz above 400.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi will meet on Monday to discuss a stimulus bill aimed at kick-starting the ailing U.S. economy, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces in Iraq came under an Iraqi mandate on Thursday, an event the country's leader said had finally restored Iraq's sovereignty nearly six years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

AP - Russia made good on its threat to cut off all natural gas supplies to Ukraine on Thursday — but the two uneasy neighbors took great pains to make sure their contact dispute would not leave Europe short of gas just as winter set in.

AP - One man and two teens have been arrested on suspicion of gang-raping a woman last month in the San Francisco Bay area while allegedly taunting her for being a lesbian, police said Thursday as they searched for a fourth suspect. Officers arrested Humberto Hernandez Salvador at his Richmond home Wednesday night, Richmond police Lt. Mark Gagan said. The 31-year-old is being held without bail on gang rape, kidnapping and carjacking charges.

AP - When Dr. Trevor Banka treats cancer patients alongside Dr.

AP - If Shonn Greene has played his last game for Iowa, he's going out in style.

Reuters - President-elect Barack Obama and Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi will meet on Monday to discuss a stimulus bill aimed at kick-starting the ailing U.S. economy, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

Reuters - U.S. forces in Iraq came under an Iraqi mandate on Thursday, an event the country's leader said had finally restored Iraq's sovereignty nearly six years after the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

AFP - Israel killed a top Hamas commander on Thursday in the biggest blow yet against the Islamist leadership as dozens more air strikes on Gaza took the death toll from the six-day blitz above 400.

AP - Actor Bernie Hamilton, who played the no-nonsense police captain on the 1970s TV series 'Starsky and Hutch,' has died. He was 80. Hamilton died of cardiac arrest Tuesday night at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, said his son, Raoul Hamilton.

AP - Outside in the elements, the Detroit Red Wings showed they can play the Chicago Blackhawks anywhere, anytime, in any conditions. And still beat them. Pavel Datsyuk skated through two defenders for a go-ahead score in a three-goal second period, and the Red Wings scored twice in a 17-second span of the third Thursday to rally past the Blackhawks 6-4 in the Winter Classic at chilly Wrigley Field.

AFP - Israel killed a Hamas leader on Thursday in the biggest blow yet to the Islamist group's command structure as dozens more air strikes on Gaza took the death toll from the six-day blitz to at least 420.

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia is considering a U.S. request to re-settle inmates from the Guantanamo Bay military prison camp, but would apply strict security screening before accepting an unspecified number.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Claiborne Pell, an aristocratic Rhode Islander who spent 36 years in the U.S. Senate and was best known for championing better education for the poor, died on Thursday, the Providence Journal reported.

AP - An Israeli warplane dropped a 2,000-pound bomb on the home of one of Hamas' top five decision-makers Thursday, instantly killing him and 18 others, while the Israeli army said troops massed on the Gaza border were ready for any order to invade.

AP - A one-time resident of this city who had been bitter over its transformation into a playground for the rich left four gift-wrapped bombs downtown in a bank-robbery attempt, turning New Year's Eve celebrations into a mass evacuation, police said Thursday.

AP - Two men and two teens have been arrested on suspicion of gang-raping a woman last month in the San Francisco Bay area while allegedly taunting her for being a lesbian, police said Thursday.

AP - Donald Westlake, a prolific author considered one of the most successful and versatile mystery writers in the United States, has died. He was 75.

AP - Nebraska quarterback Joe Ganz was sprawled out on the ground, trainers huddled around him, teammates, coaches and fans wondering whether he would be able to continue playing.

Reuters - Australia is considering a U.S. request to re-settle inmates from the Guantanamo Bay military prison camp, but would apply strict security screening before accepting an unspecified number.

Reuters - Claiborne Pell, an aristocratic Rhode Islander who spent 36 years in the U.S. Senate and was best known for championing better education for the poor, died on Thursday, the Providence Journal reported.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama plans to meet on Monday with Democratic and Republican congressional leaders to discuss their legislative agendas including how to jump-start the struggling U.S. economy, a congressional aide said on Thursday.

AP - A one-time resident of this city who had been bitter over its transformation into a playground for the rich left four gift-wrapped bombs downtown in a bank-robbery attempt, turning New Year's Eve celebrations into a mass evacuation, police said Thursday.

AP - The U.S. formally transferred control of the Green Zone to Iraqi authorities Thursday in a pair of ceremonies that also handed back Saddam Hussein's former palace. Iraq's prime minister said he will propose making Jan. 1 a holiday marking the restoration of sovereignty.

AP - Claiborne Pell, the quirky blueblood who represented blue-collar Rhode Island in the U.S. Senate for 36 years and was the force behind a grant program that has helped tens of millions of Americans attend college, died Thursday after a long battle with Parkinson's disease. He was 90.

Reuters - President-elect Barack Obama plans to meet on Monday with Democratic and Republican congressional leaders to discuss their legislative agendas including how to jump-start the struggling U.S. economy, a congressional aide said on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The ailing U.S. steel industry is pressing President-elect Barack Obama for a public works plan that could be worth $1 trillion over two years to boost flagging demand for U.S.-made steel, the New York Times reported in Friday's editions.

AP - Southern California made a strong case of its own to be No. 1.

Reuters - The ailing U.S. steel industry is pressing President-elect Barack Obama for a public works plan that could be worth $1 trillion over two years to boost flagging demand for U.S.-made steel, the New York Times reported in Friday's editions.

AFP - Israel continued to bomb Gaza early on Friday after killing a top Hamas commander in the biggest blow yet to the Islamist's leadership, as the death toll in the now seven-day blitz reached at least 420.