President-elect Barack Obama said Friday that the United States is facing the greatest economic challenge in a lifetime and vowed to confront the crisis head-on when he takes office as he held his first news conference since winning the presidency.

The nation's jobless rate jumped to 6.5 percent in October from 6.1 percent in September, the Labor Department said Friday, a rate last seen in March 1994.

A peace deal in the long-running Israeli-Palestinian dispute is within reach, but unlikely to be negotiated before the end of the year, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday during a tour of the region.

Scientists have for the first time mapped the entire genome of a cancer patient, in the process finding eight new genetic mutations that led to the woman's leukemia.

Within hours of Mr. Obama's historic victory, recriminations about the Alaska governor's failures were flying from the mouths of anonymous McCain insiders, dishing on her many gaps in knowledge and describing the infamous $150,000 (U.S.) campaign shopping spree as "Wasilla

The 23-year-old was visiting the city last weekend with fellow members of the Toronto-based Irish Canadian Rugby Club.

And yet the Illinois congressman and former political adviser to Bill Clinton is about to become the highest ranking member of Barack Obama's White House staff - a co-president of sorts.

Mr. Axelrod earned about $10,000 a month from 2000 to 2002 helping Ontario Liberals craft a winning political strategy and helping transform Mr. McGuinty from a guarded politician to one comfortable in using stories from his own life to reach

Immediately after I become president, I will confront this economic crisis head on," Mr. Obama told a packed Chicago news conference, his top economic advisers flanking him following their hours-long meeting earlier Friday about the economic crisis.

The strikes are likely to trigger fresh anger from Pakistan's civil and military leaders, who say they undercut support for their anti-terror efforts, and from many of its 170 million people.

Fighting between rebel leader Gen. Laurent Nkunda and Congolese forces has spread along the hilly, mineral-producing border region with Rwanda, uprooting hundreds of thousands of people and creating international alarm.

Yphosiane Vil says the toll could rise as rescuers continue to search for survivors and the dead amid the rubble.

The UN Committee Against Torture, in a rare public review of China's record, expressed dissatisfaction with a "very serious information gap" about abuses in the country where criminal justice information is often considered a state secret.

The category 1 hurricane is expected to pass over or near Grand Cayman late Friday or early Saturday.

ANKARA, Turkey -- An explosion on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline in eastern Turkey shut down supplies and caused a large spill late Wednesday (November 5th), according to media reports. The incident occurred on a section of the pipeline in

Al Jazeera has learnt that the three men sentenced to die for their role in the Bali bombings will be executed in the coming hours.The twin bomb attacks on the island in October 2002 killed 202 people, ...

Matthew Gantz, a 41-year-old drama teacher at Cherokee High School in Canton, has been arrested after two students alleged that Gantz had a sexual relationship with them. According to a news report in the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Gantz was arrested

Atlanta Police have arrested Khari Troutman in connection with a violent home invasion robbery that shocked a Decatur neighborhood. According to a Fox News report, Troutman faces several charges including armed robbery and kidnapping. Police officials say Troutman and at

Atlanta Falcons safety Lawyer Milloy was arrested on suspicion of drunk driving, according to this news report. Gwinnet County Sheriff's Department officials said Milloy was arrested hours after the Falcons' 24-9 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Milloy faces suspension

Marietta police officers arrested Leonel Rodriguez on suspicion of driving under the influence and several other traffic offenses after he was found speeding wrong way on the I-75, according to a news report in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The incident, which