WASHINGTON President-elect Barack Obama intends to name Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Federal Reserve, as his treasury secretary to confront the nation's intense economic turmoil, senior Democratic officials said Friday. The stock market soared on the news. Word of Geithner's likely selection emerged as New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in line to become secretary of state, said through a spokesman that discussions were on track for her appointment but no final arrangement had been made.

WASHINGTON A former GOP lobbyist with ties to Jack Abramoff may be moving toward a plea agreement with the Justice Department in its wide-ranging corruption investigation, documents showed Friday.

COLUMBUS, Ohio Two more senior managers at the Ohio agency where computers were used to dig up information about "Joe the Plumber" have been suspended without pay for their roles in the searches, an official at the agency said Friday.

WASHINGTON New York Federal Reserve Bank President Timothy Geithner is expected to be President-elect Barack Obama's choice to head the Treasury Department. Reports of his selection sent stocks soaring at the close of trading Friday.

WASHINGTON Two employees of the Interior Department have been fired and eight others disciplined in a scandal over the acceptance of meals, junkets, gifts and, in some cases, illicit sex and drugs from the oil companies that they regulated, a knowledgeable person said Friday.

WASHINGTON While President-elect Barack Obama publicly sidelined himself during congressional debate over an auto industry bailout this week, he and his top aides quietly prodded congressional leaders to find a solution to rescue struggling automakers. Obama personally talked to congressional leaders, while his new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, and congressional liaison, Phil Schiliro, were routinely dialed into conference calls to discuss the status of negotiations.

WASHINGTON President-elect Barack Obama and his wife have chosen Sidwell Friends School for their two daughters, opting for a private institution that another White House child, Chelsea Clinton, attended a decade ago.

WASHINGTON Figures.

WASHINGTON The Associated Press on Friday lifted its suspension on the use of photos provided by the U.S. military after the Pentagon assured the news cooperative that it would avoid distributing altered images to the news media.

CHICAGO President-elect Barack Obama grabbed his lunch to go Friday and artfully dodged a question about the auto industry woes he'll inherit.

LIMA, Peru In a last dash of diplomacy, President George W. Bush on Friday sought China's help in pinning down North Korea to keep its shaky promises of nuclear disarmament.

WASHINGTON One of the government's witnesses against convicted Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska says he didn't tell the truth on the stand about an immunity deal with the Justice Department in exchange for his testimony. But federal prosecutors said Friday that his current story is the false one.

WASHINGTON Law enforcement officials bracing for the largest crowds in inaugural history are preparing far-reaching security - thousands of video cameras, sharpshooters, air patrols - to safeguard President-elect Barack Obama's swearing-in.

WASHINGTON The United States has given a prestigious award to Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu.

PHOENIX Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, President-elect Barack Obama's reported primary choice for Homeland Security secretary, says she still thinks National Guard troops should be sent back to the U.S.-Mexico border.

WASHINGTON The Interior Department has taken disciplinary action against more than a half dozen workers who accepted lavish gifts, partied and in some cases had sex with employees from the energy companies they regulated.

WASHINGTON The Pentagon has banned, at least temporarily, the use of external computer flash drives because of a virus threat officials detected on Defense Department networks.

WASHINGTON The State Department has renewed an appeal to Iran for information about a former FBI agent, Floridian Robert Levinson, who went missing in Iranian territory 20 months ago.

WASHINGTON The United States will soon send its first ambassador to Libya in 36 years, following a remarkable turnaround in U.S. relations with the once-pariah North African nation.

WASHINGTON The European Union's foreign policy chief said Friday he expects President-elect Barack Obama to move quickly to deal with top trans-Atlantic goals, including Middle East peace, negotiations with Iran and slowing global warming.

WASHINGTON Federal regulators will guarantee as much as $1.4 trillion in U.S. banks' debt in a bid to get the distressed financial system pumping again. They also took steps Friday to make it easier for private investors to buy banks seized by the government.

WASHINGTON The White House says President Bush signed into law a bill that Congress approved to keep unemployment checks flowing to jobless Americans through the holiday season.

MINNEAPOLIS A recount watchdog for Norm Coleman flagged a ballot because the voter put a check next to Al Franken's name instead of blacking in the oval. A Franken monitor challenged an apparent vote for Coleman because Franken's name was also marked. And representatives of both men invoked challenges because of marks elsewhere on the ballot that could make them identifiable.

CORNWALLIS, Nova Scotia Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday he would like to add significant U.S. forces to the war in Afghanistan before national elections scheduled for next year, and that grim depictions of backsliding in the seven-year-old war are "far too pessimistic."

WASHINGTON Democratic leaders ordered Detroit's Big Three automakers Friday to submit what amounts to a detailed loan application to Congress so lawmakers can decide whether to give the beleaguered industry an emergency $25 billion lifeline.

LIMA, Peru President George W. Bush, struggling to get ahead of a global financial crisis, hopes to win more converts at a summit here for an action plan aimed at showing governments have the will and the means to halt the turmoil.

WASHINGTON Verizon Wireless on Friday fired an unspecified number of employees it said had accessed President-elect Barack Obama's old cell phone records without permission.

WASHINGTON With briefcase in hand and a smile on his face, Attorney General Michael Mukasey returned to work Friday after collapsing during a speech the night before and spurring a 14-hour scare about his health.

WASHINGTON Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has reduced the size of her presidential campaign debt to less than $7.5 million as of Nov. 1, according to campaign finance reports filed Thursday.

WASHINGTON President-elect Barack Obama intends to name Timothy Geithner, president of the New York Federal Reserve, as his treasury secretary to confront the nation's intense economic turmoil, senior Democratic officials said Friday. The stock market soared on the news. Word of Geithner's likely selection emerged as New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in line to become secretary of state, said through a spokesman that discussions were on track for her appointment but no final arrangement had been made.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. Former U.S. Sen. Fred Thompson is going back to the small screen after his foray into Republican presidential politics over the last year.

ATLANTA President-elect Barack Obama has waded into Georgia's U.S. Senate runoff, recording a radio ad supporting Democrat Jim Martin, but there's still no word on whether the president-elect will make a personal appearance.

WASHINGTON Private security contractors operating in Iraq could face Iraqi prosecution for acts committed when they supposedly had immunity from Iraqi law, U.S. officials said Thursday.

WASHINGTON In a move that marks a sea change in the nation's environmental politics, California Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman on Thursday dethroned a champion of the auto industry from a top job in the House of Representatives.

WASHINGTON The risks of nuclear weapons being used and wars being fought over dwindling resources will grow during the next 20 years as diminishing U.S. power, a shift of wealth from West to East, the rise of India and China, and climate change reshape the world, a new U.S. intelligence study warned Thursday.

WASHINGTON In a move that marks a sea change in the nation's environmental politics, California Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman on Thursday dethroned a champion of the auto industry from a top job in the House of Representatives.

WASHINGTON In the first ruling of its kind, a federal judge ordered the speedy release Thursday of five Algerian men after concluding the government didn't have the evidence to hold them for nearly seven years in Guantanamo Bay prison.

WASHINGTON Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska ended his four-decade congressional career Thursday, ushered out by his Senate colleagues with a dignity not shown by jurors in his corruption trial or by the voters in his home state, who declined to return him to Washington for an eight term.

WASHINGTON Thousands of contractors, both private Americans and non-Iraqi foreigners working in key roles for the United States in Iraq, will lose immunity and be subject to Iraqi law under new security arrangements, Bush administration officials say.

WASHINGTON If there's a single moment that explains why Congress refused Thursday to give the ailing American auto industry immediate help, it came the day before when Rep. Brad Sherman asked company executives to raise their hands if they'd flown to the nation's capital on commercial airlines.

COLUMBUS, Ohio Provisional ballots must be counted in a tight congressional race in central Ohio, one of the last undecided contests in the nation, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

President-elect Barack Obama is weighing an array of Washington insiders and outsiders, including some Republicans, for Cabinet and other top positions, according to Democratic and transition officials. They include:

WASHINGTON President-elect Barack Obama's expected nominee to lead the Department of Homeland Security, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, helped investigate the biggest U.S. terrorist event prior to Sept. 11 - the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing - and has been a national leader on immigration and border-security issues.

WASHINGTON The risks of a Middle East nuclear arms race and wars over shrinking resources will increase in the next 20 years as the world is reshaped by a loss of U.S. power, a shift of wealth from West to East, the rise of India and China, climate change and a soaring population, a U.S. intelligence study said Thursday.

WASHINGTON Democrats steered the House toward more aggressively tackling global warming and other environmental problems Thursday, toppling veteran Michigan Rep. John Dingell, a staunch supporter of Detroit automakers, from an important energy panel in favor of California liberal Rep. Henry Waxman.

WASHINGTON The bang-bang-bang emanating from the Capitol's historic Senate Appropriations Committee parlor Thursday was the sound of Robert C. Byrd turning 91.

WASHINGTON President-elect Barack Obama's 3 million campaign volunteers got re-enlistment notices this week.

WASHINGTON What Robert Gates once called "inconceivable to me" - his remaining as defense secretary beyond Inauguration Day - is looking a bit more conceivable to the rest of Washington.

WASHINGTON The Washington area's transit system is bracing for record ridership on Inauguration Day and says passengers should expect extraordinarily long lines and packed railcars and buses.

WASHINGTON Two years after the government urged making HIV tests as common as cholesterol checks, there are small gains but still one in five people infected with the AIDS virus doesn't know it, scientists said Thursday.