There have been many news stories in the past few days, but there are five that everyone should know about. So, I am here to tell you about them.

The first is the economy. According to CNN, President Elect-Barack has promised to "strengthen financial regulatory agencies and crack down on runaway 'greed and scheming' in an effort to restore stability to a reeling U.S. economic system."

Obama has named Mary Schapiro , a veteran regulator, as chiarman of Securities and Exchange Commission. He has also named Gary Gensler Head of teh Commodity Futures Trading Commission. These two will be in charge of leading a broad overhaul of the financial regulatory system.

Things are looking up for the economy with each nomination Obama makes. To learn more about this story, see the links section.

The second story is the car industry. Chrysler has shut down 30 plants for a full month in order to save money.

President Bush now has the authority to include the auto industry in the bailout due to the 2 million American jobs riding on the decision.

General Motors has resumed talks with Cerberus Capital Management about taking over some of its stake in Chrysler. This has been reported by The Wall Street Journal and Fox News, and was found on The Daily Beast.

The third story is about childhood obesity. The Governor of New York, David Paterson, has proposed a tax on sugared beverages. The tax would raise $404 million, which would be used to fund public health programs in New York. Gov. Paterson wrote the article that appeared on CNN.com. To read the full article, see "Commerntary: Why we need an obesity tax" in the links section. Or click here: http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/12/18/paterson.obesity/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

The fourth story is about the violence in Greece.  The newest news as of this posting was that 10,000 people marched on the country's parliment on this past Tuesday, due to the bad feelings the people felt about the shooting of a 15-year-old boy by a police officer. It is important to know what is going on in the world. See the full story at. http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/12/09/greece.riots/

The fifth story is about the shoe thrower. This story is here because it has been in the news a great deal more than I thought it would be. First the guy (Al-Zaidi)  threw his shoes at President Bush, then Bush basically said whatever move on, and now  Al-Zaidi is asking for leiniency in his sentancing. Meanwhile, there are aligations that Saddam's daughter funded him in his act of difiance.

I will try to keep up with all the top stories so you wont have to!