News

WASHINGTON — As they stare down their big move to the White House on Jan. 20, Michelle and Barack Obama face a sea of important decisions: Which church to attend? Anyone know a good organic chef? Standard poodle or goldendoodle?

Historians also are hanging on another question: mother-in-law or no mother-in-law?

GARDEN CITY, N.Y. (AP) — The family of a worker trampled to death in a "Black Friday" crush of bargain hunters at a Long Island Wal-Mart store filed a wrongful-death lawsuit on Wednesday, claiming store ads offering deep discounts "created an atmosphere of competition and anxiety" that led to "crowd craze."

The lawsuit claims that besides failing to provide adequate security for a pre-dawn crowd estimated at 2,000, Wal-Mart "engaged in specific marketing and advertising techniques to specifically attract a large crowd and create an environment of frenzy and mayhem and was otherwise careless, reckless and negligent."

The National Bureau of Economic Research confirms that the U.S. economy fell into a recession in December 2007. Many economists believe the current downturn will be the most severe since the recession of 1981-82.

WASHINGTON (Dec. 2) - Odetta, the deep-voiced folk singer whose ballads and songs became for many a soundtrack to the American civil rights movement, has died at age 77, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

The Detroit News / AP

DETROIT (Dec. 1) - Ex-mayoral aide Christine Beatty pleaded guilty Monday in a text-messaging sex scandal with former Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick that gripped the city for nearly a year. She will spend four months in jail.

"I lied under oath," a tearful Beatty told the judge, echoing the words her former boss, Kilpatrick, uttered in a courtroom during his own guilty plea three months earlier. Both admitted lying when they claimed they were not romantically involved. They were both married at the time.