 AP - Partial vote results in Iraq's historic election released Thursday showed a tight contest between the nation's prime minister, who had the lead in two provinces in the mainly Shiite south, and a secular challenger who appeared to be drawing on Sunni support north of Baghdad.
 AP - A series of strong aftershocks from last month's devastating quake rocked Chile on Thursday as a new president was sworn into office and immediately urged coastal residents to move to higher ground in case of a tsunami.
 AP - American households saw their wealth increase at the end of last year, mainly because the healing economy boosted stock portfolios.
 AP - House Democratic leaders on Thursday worked to rally their rank-and-file members around last-minute agreements on insurance taxes and prescription drug coverage that could move President Barack Obama's overhaul of the nation's health care system a step closer to reality.
 AP - Serious street clashes erupted between rioting youths and police in central Athens Thursday as some 30,000 people demonstrated during a nationwide strike against the cash-strapped government's austerity measures.
 AP - Kansas City's school superintendent said Thursday the plan to shutter nearly half the district's schools, while "painful," will move forward quickly so that all the closures will be complete by fall.
 AP - Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim is the first man from a developing nation to become the world's richest person — a shift that underlines the loosening of America and Europe's stranglehold on the top spots in the billionaires' club.
 AP - Without a TV show to do every night, Conan O'Brien is taking his act on the road.
 AP - In a victory for the concept album, Britain's High Court on Thursday ordered record company EMI Group Ltd. to stop selling downloads of Pink Floyd tracks individually rather than as part of the band's original records.
 AP - Pro Football Hall of Famer and former television actor Merlin Olsen has died. He was 69.
 Reuters - Strong aftershocks in Chile on Thursday have not so far caused a tsunami, but officials are maintaining an alert in some coastal regions, the country's new Interior minister, Rodrigo Hinzpeter, told reporters.
Reuters - Senator Christopher Dodd said on Thursday that he will present on Monday his own version of a financial reform bill after compromise talks with Senate Republicans broke down.
 Reuters - Police clashed with stone-throwing youths in Athens on Thursday as tens of thousands of strikers protested against draconian cutbacks aimed at pulling Greece out of a debt crisis shaking the euro zone.
 Reuters - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called on Thursday for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks to start without delay despite Palestinian insistence that Israel first cancel a settlement project condemned by Washington.
Reuters - President Barack Obama pressed China on Thursday to move to a "more market-oriented exchange rate" in a speech where he laid out a plan to boost U.S. exports in the coming years.
 Reuters - A cross-sectarian, secularist alliance headed by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is ahead in two Iraqi provinces north of Baghdad, early results from the country's electoral commission showed Thursday.
 Reuters - Ukraine's new prime minister, Mykola Azarov, declaring state coffers were empty, promised on Thursday to meet all obligations to the International Monetary Fund and push through a realistic 2010 budget.
 Reuters - The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell only slightly last week, indicating that rapid job growth would probably continue to elude the economy for a while.
 AFP - A 7.2-magnitude aftershock and four other tremors rocked disaster-hit Chile Thursday, triggering a tsunami alert just minutes before billionaire Sebastian Pinera was sworn in as the new president.
 AFP - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a public apology to the visiting US vice president on Thursday, hoping to defuse a row over settlements that prompted a Palestinian boycott of indirect peace talks.
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