Gov. Bill Richardson of New Mexico is a serious contender for commerce secretary, but he could be tapped for another senior post, two sources close to the transition told CNN Friday.

Armed men entered a Congolese camp for displaced people Friday to kidnap and rape a girl, but when the girl screamed, the gunmen fired shots, killing a 20-year-old woman, a U.N. spokesman said.

Two years ago, Karen Daniel was wider around than she was tall.

Jobless numbers and foreclosures are skyrocketing. The stock market is plummeting. The auto industry is teetering on the edge of collapse. Analysts are wondering: Who's skippering the ship? "Somebody has to speak up soon," said CNN senior political analyst David Gergen. "The White House is silent ... and the president-elect is silent in Chicago."

The State Department called on Iran on Friday to pony up any information it has on a former FBI agent who vanished there last year.

A white teen convicted of murdering four blacks, including two children, in a racist killing spree in South Africa's North West province was sentenced Friday to four life terms in prison.

In post-Katrina New Orleans, four out of every 10 suspects arrested for homicide walk free without being charged, the district attorney says. The city has more murders per capita than any other in the country. That's what happened in the case of 23-year-old Ryan McClure, whose killer is still at large. Federal authorities say white-collar crime is fueling street crime.

Students here in Cambridge watched in horror in September 2005 as they saw lines of desperate people snaked round the convention center and the Superdome in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

Doctors gave U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey a clean bill of health Friday morning after he apparently had a fainting spell, according to Gina Talamona, spokeswoman for Department of Justice.

Furry signs of a down-trending economy peer dolefully from every kennel at the Broward County Humane Society shelter in Florida and hundreds of others across the country.

Nebraska lawmakers voted today to change a controversial safe-haven law intended to protect infants, but that made the state a magnet for parents with troubled teens. Thirty-five children -- all but six of them older than 10 -- have been dropped off at Nebraska hospitals since the law took effect in September. Lawmakers amended the law to say that no child older than 30 days can be dropped off.

More than 20 years ago, I got into an argument with a college roommate over affirmative action -- one I've thought about since President-elect Barack Obama began nominating people to serve in the Cabinet and White House staff.