Aaron's Daily WWW Newspaper

BERLIN - An American man who suffered from AIDS appears to have been cured of the disease 20 months after receiving a targeted bone marrow transplant normally used to fight leukemia, his doctors said.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska - Just as Sen. Ted Stevens appeared ready to take his criminal record back to Congress — perhaps opening a door for Gov. Sarah Palin to replace him — his re-election bid faltered.

SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. is planning a Windows Live update in the coming weeks that adds social networking features to the software maker's instant messaging program, free Hotmail e-mail service and other sites.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Kenny Chesney won only one of the seven awards he was nominated for at the CMA Awards, but he sure made it count.

The Los Angeles Lakers had a surprisingly easy time staying undefeated. Only a "Super" effort kept the Atlanta Hawks from joining them. Paul Pierce made a jumper with 0.5 seconds left to give the Boston Celtics a 103-102 victory over Atlanta on Wednesday night, handing the Hawks their first loss of the season.

LONDON/TOKYO (Reuters) - Germany has fallen into recession and China's industry output growth waned to its weakest in seven years, data showed on Thursday, reinforcing evidence the financial crisis is plunging the world into a painful downturn.

TALLINN (Reuters) - The United States views Russian threats to place tactical missiles in the Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad as provocative and misguided, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Foreclosure activity in October rose 25 percent from a year earlier, although filings in California fell by double-digit percentage points for the second consecutive month due to a state law slowing the foreclosure process, according to a monthly report by RealtyTrac.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Gunmen abducted an Iranian diplomat in Peshawar Thursday, a day after a U.S. aid worker was shot dead in the city on the front line of an Islamist insurgency sweeping northwest Pakistan and parts of Afghanistan.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chronically ill Americans are more likely to forgo medical care because of high costs or experience medical errors than patients in other affluent countries, according to a study released on Thursday.

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil dropped to a 22-month low under $55 on Thursday as evidence piled up global recession would have a deep impact on demand and news OPEC might take more emergency action did only a little to halt the sell-off.

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austrian Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned his daughter in a cellar for 24 years and fathered seven children by her, has been charged with the murder of one of their children who died shortly after birth.

KABUL (Reuters) - A suicide car-bomber attacked a convoy of U.S.-led troops as it passed through a market in Afghanistan Thursday killing a U.S. soldier and 10 bystanders, the U.S. military said.

FRANKFURT (AFP) - Germany, Europe's biggest economy, entered recession Thursday amid more heavy falls on stock markets after the US scrapped plans to buy up toxic mortgage assets at the heart of the financial crisis.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) - Gunmen kidnapped an Iranian diplomat and killed his local guard in northwestern Pakistan Thursday, police said, in the latest of a series of attacks in the region.

GAZA CITY (AFP) - The United Nations will suspend its food distribution to half of Gaza's 1.5 million people on Thursday after Israel failed to allow emergency supplies into the Palestinian territory, a spokesman said.

TALLINN (AFP) - US Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday blasted Russia's threat to deploy missiles in its Baltic Sea territory of Kaliningrad in response to a new US missile defence system.

MOSCOW (AFP) - A sailor has been charged for setting off the fire extinguishing system on the Russian nuclear submarine Nerpa, causing 20 people to be gassed to death, investigators told news agencies on Thursday.

PARIS (AFP) - Leading industrialised nations are now in recession and face a "protracted" downturn, with the US, Japanese and eurozone economies likely to shrink next year, the OECD warned on Thursday.

LONDON (AFP) - British telecoms operator BT Group said on Thursday its second-quarter net profit jumped 18 percent but that it would cut 10,000 jobs by March 2009, mostly in Britain.