Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey collapsed last evening while delivering a speech to a prominent legal group and was rushed to George Washington University Hospital.

AP - With no end in sight to economic bad news, President George W. Bush on Friday ensured that millions of laid-off workers will keep getting their unemployment checks as the year-end holidays approach.

Politico - ... now separate Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) and Democrat Al Franken, with 46 percent of the 2.9 million ballots recounted in the too-close-to-call Minnesota Senate race.  Franken so far has gained a net of 79 votes on Coleman.

Reuters - House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledged support for a U.S. stimulus package and aid for sputtering carmakers on Friday, stepping into a Washington power vacuum that analysts fear may be contributing to the global financial crisis.

AP - Somali pirates have collected more than $150 million in ransoms over the past year, Kenya's foreign affairs minister said Friday, calling on ship owners not to pay when their vessels are hijacked.

AP - 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.

Politico - President-elect Barack Obama is expected to tap New York Federal Reserve President Timothy Geithner as Treasury secretary on Monday — or earlier, sources say.

AP - Democratic leaders began laying out conditions Friday that they say Detroit's Big Three automakers need to meet before Congress will consider giving them an emergency $25 billion lifeline.

AP - Detroit's embattled automakers have two weeks to show a skeptical Congress how a multibillion-dollar lifeline will help them keep the industry from imploding.

AP - Amsterdam will close almost a fifth of its marijuana cafes to comply with a national ban on having them near schools, the mayor said Friday.

An internal CIA probe has concluded that agency officials deliberately misled Congress, the White House and federal prosecutors about key details of the 2001 downing of an airplane carrying U.S. missionaries in Peru, according to a senior lawmaker who called yesterday for a new criminal inquiry i...

AP - 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.

Politico - As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama boasted of opposing the Iraq War from the start.

Last year, there was a candlelight dinner at sold-out, shut-down Union Station to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Federalist Society, with President Bush on stage and three Supreme Court justices in the audience.

Politico - Top advisers to President-elect Barack Obama’s presidential campaign said Thursday that Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) would have been a powerful boost to the Republican ticket.

AFP - The Senate has confirmed the nomination of career diplomat Gene Cretz as the first US ambassador to Libya in 36 years, the State Department said Friday.

AP - 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.

AP - The CIA withheld information from the White House, Justice Department and Congress about the 2001 shooting down of a plane over Peru carrying an American missionary family, part of a yearslong cover-up of lethal violations in U.S. drug-interdiction procedures, according to a classified internal CIA report.

AP - With no end in sight to economic bad news, President George W. Bush is about to ensure that millions of laid-off workers won't see their unemployment checks disappear as the year-end holidays approach.