Reuters - Stocks rose modestly on Thursday as better-than-expected jobs and trade data added to optimism over the economic recovery.

Reuters - McDonald's Corp's European sales growth fell in August from the sizzling levels it experienced for much of the year due to weakness in France, which generates the company's biggest European sales, and its shares fell nearly 3 percent.

AP - Iran said Thursday it will free one of three Americans jailed for more than 13 months in an act of clemency to mark the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

AFP - Nigeria has set off on what some may consider a near impossible task in Africa's most populous nation -- holding fair elections -- and has upped the ante by giving itself only four months to prepare.

Reuters - President Barack Obama stood firm on Thursday in opposition to a Republican push to extend Bush-era tax cuts for the rich but stopped short of threatening to veto such a measure if passed by Congress.

AFP - Energy-hungry India is considering setting up an 11-billion-dollar fund to help finance the expansion of power companies' generation capacities, the country's power secretary said Thursday.

AP - Four prisoners with links to al-Qaida being guarded by American troops escaped from a maximum-security prison in Baghdad and are still at large, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Thursday.

AP - A suicide car bomber hit a central market in southern Russia on Thursday, killing at least 17 people and wounding more than 130 in one of the North Caucasus region's worst attacks in years, officials said.

AP - Alabama seafood market owner David Scott faces a difficult decision as he tries to rejuvenate his business after the Gulf oil spill: He can accept a piece of BP's $20 billion claims fund — relatively fast, easy money — or sue the oil giant for a bigger payday, wait years and risk ending up with nothing.

AP - Hundreds of angry Afghans burned a U.S. flag and chanted "Death to the Christians" on Thursday to protest plans by a small American church to torch copies of the Muslim holy book on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

AP - U.S. Marine commandos stormed a pirate-held cargo ship off the Somalia coast Thursday, reclaiming control and taking nine prisoners without firing a shot in the first such boarding raid by the international anti-piracy flotilla, U.S. Navy officials said.

Reuters - New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week to a two-month low, while the trade deficit narrowed sharply in July, hopeful signs for the stuttering economic recovery.

AP - North Korean children are already singing the praises of the young man in line to become the reclusive nation's next leader, analysts say, but the rest of the world doesn't even know the age, or, until recently, how to spell the name of Kim Jong Il's youngest son.

AP - Spain gave final approval Thursday to labor market reforms designed to shake up a listless economy and help slash a bloated deficit that has prompted European-wide worries of another Greek-style debt crisis.

AFP - The US trade deficit dropped more than expected in July as exports reached their highest level in two years, official data showed Thursday, boosting hopes for the US economic recovery.

AFP - Australian regulators rejected National Australia Bank's 12.2 billion US dollar bid for financial firm AXA Asia Pacific on competition concerns Thursday, in a move welcomed by rival suitor AMP.

AFP - Kuwait has appointed its first independent regulatory body, the Capital Market Authority, to oversee its stock exchange, Commerce Minister Ahmad al-Harun said on Wednesday.