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President-elect Barack Obama is said to have chosen Chicago schools chief Arne Duncan to serve as education secretary. Duncan has run the country's third-biggest school district for the past seven years. He has focused on improving struggling schools, closing those that fail and getting better teachers.

President-elect Barack Obama has vowed to adopt an aggressive approach to global warming and the environment. At a news conference Monday in Chicago, Obama will announce his team to deal with the nation's energy and environmental future. The industrial world is looking to the Obama administration to help get other countries to make environmental changes.

Obama's supporter and former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle was nominated to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services and director of the new White House Office of Health Reform.

One of Pakistan's most eminent journalists is confined to his home under permanent armed guard because he fears he'll be killed for speaking out. Najam Sethi is getting death threats from the Taliban for writing articles warning of the threat of Islamist militancy to his country. Sethi says part of his problem is that anchormen at private TV channels spout fundamentalist views and incite violence.

Because of a sharp drop in corporate underwriting, National Public Radio has announced the elimination of 64 filled and 21 unfilled positions as part of cuts throughout the organization. Two shows, News & Notes and Day to Day, were canceled.

Top Illinois lawmakers say they'd like to call the legislature into session for a special election to pick President-elect Barack Obama's Senate replacement. They don't want to leave that job to Gov. Rod Blagojevich who's accused by federal prosecutors of trying to sell the seat. The governor and the president-elect are not personally close, but they have worked closely together over the years.

Fox News TV host Bill O'Reilly describes himself "as the most controversial journalist and commentator in the United States of America." In his memoir, A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity, he explains how he got that way.

Last spring on its MySpace page, the Brooklyn experimental rock band Parts & Labor asked fans to send sound samples to put on the group's new album. Parts & Labor used every single one, often blurring the line between instruments and samples.

The Labor Department says the U.S. economy lost more than a half-million jobs in November. It was the steepest drop in nearly a quarter-century. Figures show that 533,000 jobs were lost last month, pushing the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent. That's a 15-year high. It's proof that the recession, already a year old, is getting deeper.

O.J. Simpson is scheduled to be sentenced Friday in Las Vegas for his conviction on felony charges, including kidnapping, in a robbery committed last year. The former football and movie star — acquitted of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend Ron Goldman 13 years ago — could get up to life in prison.