Aaron's Daily WWW Newspaper

LONDON - British troops ended six years of combat operations in Iraq on Thursday, beginning to withdraw from the southern city of Basra after a bloody and costly mission that was deeply unpopular at home.

HOUSTON - Exxon Mobil Corp. said Thursday its first-quarter profit fell 58 percent from a year ago as the world's biggest publicly traded oil company, like the rest of the industry, saw crude and gas prices fall precipitously.

LOS ANGELES - There was no saving Matt Giraud this time on "American Idol." The 23-year-old dueling piano player from Kalamazoo, Mich., was rescued by the show's judges two weeks ago. But on Wednesday it was revealed that he received the fewest viewer votes on the Fox singing competition — just beneath this season's most formidable front-runner.

PARIS - French legislators reconsidered a bill Wednesday that would punish people who illegally download music and films by cutting off their Internet connections.

DENVER - The Denver Nuggets ended a long postseason drought last night while the Atlanta Hawks moved closer to ending theirs. The Nuggets have won a playoff series for the first time since 1994, advancing to the NBA's Western Conference semifinals by beating New Orleans 107-86 in Game 5. The game was tied at 62 until the Nuggets closed the third quarter on an 18-4 run.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexican President Felipe Calderon told his people to stay home from Friday for a five-day partial shutdown of the economy, after the World Health Organization said a swine flu pandemic was imminent.

DETROIT/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chrysler LLC rushed to clinch a deal on Thursday to stave off collapse ahead of a midnight deadline imposed on the No. 3 U.S. automaker by the Obama administration.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama told Americans on Wednesday his administration was working to "clear away the wreckage" of recession as he assessed his first 100 days in office and promised to keep up the whirlwind pace.

BEIJING (Reuters) - China said on Thursday the possibility of North Korea conducting a second nuclear test was "hypothetical," so it could not say how it would affect relations.

WASHINGTON/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama said Pakistan's army had begun to realize that homegrown militants and not India posed the biggest threat to stability, after troops retook a key town from Taliban militants.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Democratic-controlled U.S. Congress Wednesday approved a $3.4 trillion compromise budget plan for the 2010 fiscal year, clinching a big victory for President Barack Obama on his 100th day in office but with no Republican support.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The death toll from twin car bomb blasts in a crowded Baghdad market rose to 51 Thursday, police said, and the country's main Sunni political party condemned the attack on a heavily Shi'ite Muslim area.

MATAMOROS, Mexico (Reuters) - Mexico's congested border into Brownsville, Texas, was uncannily quiet as news that a toddler who traveled through the crossing has died from swine flu in the United States kept people away.

GENEVA (AFP) - The World Health Organization has warned that a global swine flu pandemic is imminent, as more nations confirmed cases of a deadly disease that has spread round the world in a matter of days.

BAKU (AFP) - Gunmen burst into a university complex in Azerbaijan's capital Baku on Thursday and killed at least 13 people in a shooting rampage, officials said.

BASRA, Iraq (AFP) - British forces formally ended combat operations in Iraq on Thursday, one month ahead of schedule, after a ceremony to remember their dead from six years of warfare.

MUMBAI (AFP) - Millions of voters joined the third wave of India's month-long elections on Thursday, with security ramped up as the staggered polls moved to the volatile Kashmir Valley and the financial capital Mumbai.

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called on the Security Council to take action against those committing horrific acts against children during war.

BERLIN (AFP) - German unemployment rose a seasonally adjusted 58,000 in April from March, the government said on Thursday, as the recession put more and more people out of work in Europe's biggest economy.

DETROIT, Michigan (AFP) - Auto workers have voted to approve a new contract with Chrysler and Fiat, granting major concessions to ensure the survival of the number three US automaker.