AP - The U.N. Security Council approved a resolution Thursday night calling for an immediate and durable cease-fire between Hamas militants and Israeli forces in Gaza. The U.S. abstained from the 14-0 vote.

AP - A key panel unanimously recommended impeachment for Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Thursday, setting up a vote that could make him the first governor to face such fate in Illinois' sordid political history. Blagojevich should lose his job for abusing power, mismanaging government and committing possible criminal acts, including federal allegations he tried to sell off a U.S. Senate seat, the special committee concluded.

AP - President-elect Barack Obama's proposed tax cuts ran into opposition Thursday from senators in his own party who said they wouldn't do much to stimulate the economy or create jobs. Senators from both parties agreed that Congress should do something to stimulate the economy. But Democratic senators emerging from a private meeting of the Senate Finance Committee criticized business and individual tax cuts in Obama's stimulus plan.

AP - U.S. policy to win in Afghanistan must recognize the poor nation's limitations and its neighborhood, especially its intertwined relationship with U.S. terrorism-fighting ally Pakistan, the top U.S. military commander in the region said Thursday.

AP - Vice President Dick Cheney said Thursday that he sees no reason for President George W. Bush to pre-emptively pardon anyone at the CIA involved in harsh interrogations of suspected terrorists. "I don't have any reason to believe that anybody in the agency did anything illegal," he said.

AP - In grainy cell-phone videos played over and over on the Internet, police officers force an unarmed black man to the ground and hold him face-down on a crowded train platform. Suddenly one of the officers draws his gun and fatally shoots the man in the back — then looks up.

AP - Prosecutors said Thursday that investigators found 100 signed checks worth $173 million in Bernard Madoff's office desk that he was ready to send out to his closest family and friends at the time of his arrest last month in what is alleged to be largest financial fraud in history.

AP - Heisman Trophy winners Tim Tebow and Sam Bradford traded touchdown passes to start the second quarter and No. 1 Florida and No. 2 Oklahoma were tied 7-7 at halftime of the BCS national championship game Thursday night.

AP - The U.N. Security Council approved a resolution Thursday night calling for an immediate and durable cease-fire between Hamas militants and Israeli forces in Gaza. The U.S. abstained from the 14-0 vote.

AP - The U.N. suspended food deliveries to Gaza and the Red Cross accused Israel of blocking medical assistance after forces fired on aid workers, killing two, as the threat of a wider conflict emerged with Lebanon.

AP - The European Union said Thursday that gas supplies should restart after it struck a deal with Russia on supervising the flow of gas through Ukraine.

AP - Tiny bodies lying side by side wrapped in white burial shrouds. The cherubic face of a dead preschooler sticking up from the rubble of her home. A man cradling a wounded boy in a chaotic emergency room after Israel shelled a U.N. school.

AP - As of Thursday, Jan. 8, 2009, at least 4,223 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

AFP - Chinese-owned Ssangyong Motor of South Korea, hit by falling auto sales in the face of the global slowdown, said on Friday it had applied for court receivership to avoid bankruptcy.