Stocks end sharply lower on bleak jobs data
Stocks slumped Friday after the U.S. unemployment rate shot above 7 percent, signaling that Americans will be sticking to their tightened budgets for a while.

Patrick Swayze checks into hospital

Patrick Swayze has pneumonia and has checked himself into a hospital for observation, it was revealed Friday at a press event for the Television Critics Association in Los Angeles.

Jobless rate jumps to 7.2 percent

The Labor Department reported Friday that the jobless rate rose to 7.2 percent in December and payrolls dropped by 524,000 jobs.

Stevie Wonder: Touch-screens alienate blind

The craze for touch-screen gadgets, sparked by Apple Inc's popular iPhone, is raising worries that a whole generation of consumer electronics will be out of the reach of the blind.

Don't vaccinate? Doctors paying to hear why not

There are so many parents in the free-spirited town of Ashland, Ore., who won't get their kids vaccinated that federal researchers are paying money just to hear their side of things.

At CES, progress a step at a time

The big debuts at the International Consumer Electronics Show aren't whiz-bang hardware systems. They're ideas designed to protect the environment and improve the technology consumers already use.

Kenya: 10 million at risk after harvests fail
Ten million people risk going hungry in Kenya after harvests failed because of drought, the government said Friday.

American set on fire by Afghan dies
An anthropologist embedded with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan to help soldiers understand local customs has died more than two months after she was doused with fuel and set on fire.

Microsoft's Ballmer raises pressure on Yahoo
Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer has told the Financial Times newspaper that the current period of transition for Yahoo is a good time for a search deal between the two companies.