AP - Savage street clashes erupted between rioting youths and police in central Athens Thursday as more than 30,000 people demonstrated during a nationwide strike against the cash-strapped government's austerity measures.

AP - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday implored Israelis and Palestinians to move beyond a diplomatic spat that has marred his trip to the region, urging the sides to waste no time in resolving their decades-old conflict despite daunting obstacles.

AP - Savage street clashes erupted between rioting youths and police in central Athens Thursday as more than 30,000 people demonstrated during a nationwide strike against the cash-strapped government's austerity measures.

AP - Christians and Muslims once shared their lives together in Nigeria's fertile central belt, buying each other's goods in mixed neighborhoods and cultivating each other's farms across a sun-baked plateau.

AP - Information on 24,000 HSBC customers with Swiss accounts has been stolen, the British bank said Thursday, potentially exposing large numbers of international clients to prosecution by tax authorities in their home countries.

CBC - Newfoundland and Labrador's fuels regulator allowed gas stations Thursday to raise fuel prices slightly.

AP - On Christmas Day, a passenger on a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit tried to blow up the plane with plastic explosives in his underwear. He failed, yet the very attempt shook the U.S. government, set federal agencies against each other and triggered months of political second-guessing.

AP - A final agreement nearly in hand, President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders are about to embark on one last sales job that will determine the outcome of the president's signature health care overhaul.

AP - Rich nations must contribute more to a climate change fund and help fight deforestation, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said in opening a conference Thursday on saving the world's forests — a key defense against global warming.

AP - The federal government on Wednesday recommended an endangered-species listing for the loggerhead turtles in U.S. waters, a decision that could lead to tighter restrictions on fishing and other maritime trades.

LiveScience.com - A mold-resistant bean, a German pink tomato and a wild strawberry plucked from the flanks of a Russian volcano are just some of the crops whose seeds are being tucked away this week in a giant vault dug out of a mountainside of the Norwegian island Svalbard.

AFP - The city of Amsterdam is to be prosecuted over the dumping of toxic waste by a ship in Ivory Coast in 2006, the Supreme Court has ruled in a decision made available Wednesday.

AP - Sony has a new message for Nintendo Wii gamers: Come join us.

AP - Last year, Palm thought it had all the pieces for a turnaround in the market it pioneered: A new CEO known for making the iPod a household name, a sleek new smart phone called the Pre and fresh, intuitive operating software.

AP - A global Internet oversight agency is reopening discussions about whether to create a ".xxx" domain name as an online red-light district where porn sites can set up shop away from the wandering eyes of children and teenagers.

AP - A final agreement nearly in hand, President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders are about to embark on one last sales job that will determine the outcome of the president's signature health care overhaul.

AP - Savage street clashes erupted between rioting youths and police in central Athens Thursday as more than 30,000 people demonstrated during a nationwide strike against the cash-strapped government's austerity measures.

AP - Toyota's massive recalls are prompting Congress to reconsider whether the nation's auto safety agency has lived up to its mission of protecting motorists.

AP - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Thursday implored Israelis and Palestinians to move beyond a diplomatic spat that has marred his trip to the region, urging the sides to waste no time in resolving their decades-old conflict despite daunting obstacles.

AP - The foreclosure crisis isn't over, but the pace of growth may finally be slowing down.

AP - A troublingly high number of U.S. patients who are given angiograms to check for heart disease turn out not to have a significant problem, according to the latest study to suggest Americans get an excess of medical tests.

AP - As they scrambled recently to trace the source of a salmonella outbreak that has sickened hundreds around the country, investigators from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention successfully used a new tool for the first time — the shopper cards that millions of Americans swipe every time they buy groceries.

AP - Eleven days after her son Benjamin's birth by C-section, Linda Coale awoke in the middle of the night in pain, one leg badly swollen. Just as her doctor returned her phone call asking what to do, she dropped dead from a blood clot.

AP - Alex Rodriguez may soon be talking to federal authorities, and he hopes it will happen close to spring training.

AP - Marion Jones hasn't lost much of her swagger.

AP - Lindsey Vonn fell in the first leg of the season's final giant slalom and Maria Riesch was able to make up ground on Vonn's overall World Cup lead.