Aaron's Daily WWW Newspaper

WASHINGTON - Homeowners around the country are scrambling to refinance their mortgages at the lowest rates since the early 1960s as the economy staggers through what's likely to be the worst recession in decades.

NEW YORK - Free on $10 million bond during an investigation into an alleged $50 billion investment fraud, Bernard Madoff had to push his way through a swarm of media to reach his posh Manhattan apartment, where he is under a nighttime curfew.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Country singer Mindy McCready was hospitalized after she cut her wrists and took several pills in an apparent suicide attempt, Nashville police said.

RUMSON, N.J. - A panel of federal wildlife experts says New Jersey's wayward dolphins are just fine where they are.

LUBBOCK, Texas - People never forgot Slingin' Sammy Baugh.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama was set on Thursday to name seasoned regulator Mary Schapiro to head the Securities and Exchange Commission as he considers a major overhaul of the heavily criticized agency.

KIGALI (Reuters) - A U.N. court sentenced a former army colonel accused of masterminding the slaughter of 800,000 people in Rwanda in 1994 to life in prison Thursday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. President-elect Barack Obama was set on Thursday to name seasoned regulator Mary Schapiro to head the Securities and Exchange Commission as he considers a major overhaul of the heavily criticized agency.

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Disgraced Wall Street investment manager Bernard Madoff, accused of orchestrating a $50 billion fraud, was put under house arrest on Wednesday.

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will start withdrawing troops from Iraq on May 31, 2009 at the latest, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Thursday.

DETROIT/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chrysler LLC said on Wednesday that it would halt factory operations for at least a month, putting new pressure on the Bush administration to quickly help cash-strapped automakers.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO and Russia will on Friday hold their first high-level contact since the alliance froze ties with Moscow after its intervention into Georgia this August, a NATO official said.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at U.S. President George W. Bush apologized to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for embarrassing him before the watching world, the prime minister's office said on Thursday.

ARUSHA, Tanzania (AFP) - A UN-backed tribunal on Thursday sentenced the man accused of having masterminded Rwanda's 1994 genocide to life in prison for his part in the massacres that killed some 800,000 people.

SINGAPORE (AFP) - Oil traded at four-year lows below 40 dollars Thursday, despite OPEC's pledge of a record output cut, while demand remained weak and the IMF called for moves to boost the slowing global economy.

LONDON (AFP) - Britain will withdraw all but 400 of its troops from Iraq by the end of next July, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Thursday, but rejected any link with pressure to send more forces to Afghanistan.

GENEVA (AFP) - The death toll from cholera in Zimbabwe has passed 1,000 and the epidemic is continuing to spread, the United Nations said Thursday.

CLEVELAND, Ohio (AFP) - Doctors hailed a groundbreaking transplant to replace 80 percent of a woman's face, saying Wednesday it is a means for the severely disfigured to "face the world" without humiliation.

WASHINGTON, (AFP) - Troubled US automaker Chrysler hopes to reboot merger talks with General Motors as both companies grapple with imminent collapse, hoping for a federal government rescue, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.

SYDNEY (AFP) - Australia's Qantas Airways and British Airways said Thursday that their talks on a planned merger to form a global carrier worth an estimated 6.0 billion US dollars had ended without agreement.