UNITED STATES

Pfizer Inc shares fell 1 percent on Thursday after it said a U.S. decision on whether to approve the company's new version of its big-selling Prevnar vaccine that fights pneumonia and meningitis would push past the deadline.

The number of workers filing new applications for jobless benefits fell last week to the lowest level in about 17 months, according to U.S. government data on Thursday.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he hoped for improved relations with the United States in 2010, days after his attack on U.S. missile defense plans displayed the fragility of efforts to draw closer.

Despite iPods, genetic sequencing, the Internet and Twitter, nearly a third of Americans said they thought there would be more technological advances by the year 2010.

Pakistani police will ask a court to charge five Americans detained in the country this month with planning terrorist attacks and jail them for life, a police official said on Thursday.

When Hillary Clinton made a strong showing and Sarah Palin was named to the Republican ticket in the 2008 U.S. presidential race, the election of the first female president seemed not so far off.

Iranian hardline authorities ordered their opponents on Thursday to cease anti-government protests and denied an opposition website report that troops were heading for Tehran ahead of a planned opposition rally.

A historic economic crisis has left Americans with plenty of things to worry about. But is inflation one of them? And is there a risk that fretting over higher prices may actually bring them about?

A suicide bomber penetrated a foreign army base in Afghanistan and killed eight CIA employees on Wednesday, one of the U.S. agency's largest death tolls, while four Canadian troops and a journalist died in a separate attack.

The number of U.S. workers filing new applications for jobless benefits fell last week to the lowest level in about 17 months, suggesting the economy might be on the cusp of job creation.

U.S. trucking giant YRC Worldwide said on Thursday it averted bankruptcy by successfully negotiating a critical debt-for-equity exchange that wipes out $470 million in debt and gives the struggling company access to needed credit as it restructures.

New York City business activity expanded in December for the fifth consecutive month, though at a slower rate than November, while a gauge of business optimism was at its highest in more than three years, according to an industry report on Thursday.

The number of workers filing new applications for jobless benefits fell last week to the lowest level in about 17 months, according to U.S. government data on Thursday.

UC RUSAL plans to raise up to $2.6 billion in a landmark Hong Kong IPO next month and is betting on aluminum price growth to repay nearly $15 billion in debt and restore profits after a miserable first half of 2009.

China on Thursday decried a U.S. decision to impose duties of 10 to 16 percent on Chinese-made steel pipe, the biggest U.S. trade case to date against China, and said it had been made a scapegoat of protectionist interests.

China on Thursday decried a U.S. decision to impose duties of 10 to 16 percent on Chinese-made steel pipe, the biggest U.S. trade case to date against China, and said it had been made a scapegoat of protectionist interests.

Last week's failed plot to bomb a U.S. passenger jet has exposed lingering fissures within the U.S. intelligence community, which had information from interviews and clandestine intercepts but did not put the pieces together, officials said.

The dollar fell broadly on Thursday on year-end position adjustment in thin, illiquid trade which prompted exaggerated price movements.

S&P 500 index futures edged higher on Thursday as investors awaited data on the health of the hobbled labor market, which poses a potential hurdle for the nascent economic recovery.

Oil rose toward $80 on Thursday, poised for the biggest annual climb in a decade, a year after posting huge losses as the global economic crisis sapped demand.

U.S. stock index futures pointed to a higher open on Wall Street on Thursday for the last trading session of the year, with futures for the S&P 500 up 0.2 percent, Dow Jones futures up 0.2 percent and Nasdaq 100 futures up 0.1 percent at 3.48 a.m. ET.