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Fresh worries about widening unemployment added to investors' list of concerns about the economy Thursday and extended Wall Street's sell-off to a second day. The major indexes each fell more than 1.5 percent, including the Dow Jones industrial average, which lost 110 points.

New claims for unemployment benefits jumped last week to a 16-year high, the Labor Department said Thursday, providing more evidence of a rapidly weakening job market expected to get even worse next year.

With weekly jobless claims benefits at a 16-year high, the White House said Thursday that President George W. Bush would quickly sign legislation pending in Congress to provide further unemployment benefits.

Oil prices plunged over $3 Thursday, briefly dipping below $50 a barrel as 16-year high U.S. unemployment figures and plummeting stock markets caused investors to price in lower crude demand.

World stock markets tumbled Thursday, with benchmarks in Tokyo and Seoul losing almost 7 percent each, after recession fears sent Wall Street plunging and Japan suffered its biggest drop in exports in seven years.

Pounded by a fierce financial crisis, the country is sinking deeper into economic despair and is likely to be in the hole well into next year, forcing more Americans into the ranks of the unemployed.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday sharply lowered its projections for economic activity this year and next, and signaled that additional interest rate reductions may be needed to help combat the worst financial crisis to jolt the country in more than a half-century.

A plan to give troubled U.S. automakers billions of dollars in government-backed loans is on life support, leaving the fate of hundreds of thousands of workers and Detroit's once-venerable car companies hanging in the balance.

Wall Street hit levels not seen since 2003 on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones industrial average plunging below the 8,000 mark as the fate of Detroit's Big Three automakers amid a slumping economy disheartened investors.

Consumer prices plunged by the largest amount in the past 61 years in October as gasoline pump prices dropped by a record amount.

Target Corp. said Monday it will aggressively cut prices to give consumers bargains during the holiday season, after weak sales of its apparel and home offerings led third-quarter earnings to fall 24 percent.

Wall Street has pulled off a rebound in another turbulent session, as investors rushed back into the market after the Standard & Poor's 500 index tested a 2003 low. The Dow ended up 151.17, or 1.83 percent, to 8,424.75.

Wholesale prices plunged a record amount in October as energy prices fell by the largest amount in 22 years.

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke waged a stout defense of their management of a $700 billion financial bailout on Capitol Hill Tuesday, just one week after the administration abandoned the original strategy behind the rescue.

Yahoo will replace founder Jerry Yang as CEO as soon as a replacement is found. The move announced Monday will end Yang's rocky 17-month reign running the Internet company that he started 14 years ago. Many Yahoo shareholders have been upset with Yang since he refused to sell the Sunnyvale-based company to Microsoft Corp. for $47.5 billion six months ago.

Foreclosures are becoming a big business for those who board up and those creating the sign of the times. In Stockton, Calif., one out of every 31 homes is now in foreclosure, which means even burnt-out lawns in front of vacant homes have some folks seeing green for lawn painters.

Detroit's Big Three automakers are running out of time in their quest to convince skeptical lawmakers that Congress should throw them a $25 billion lifeline.

The Bush administration has told top lawmakers it does not plan to use at least half of the $700 billion bailout fund that Congress approved this fall to aid the financial industry, congressional officials said Monday. That would mean the incoming Obama administration would decide whether and how the funds should be spent.

Citigroup Inc. is shedding approximately 53,000 more employees in the coming quarters as the banking giant struggles to steady itself after suffering massive losses from deteriorating debt.

The music industry's courtroom campaign against people who share songs online is coming under counterattack. A Harvard Law School professor has launched a constitutional assault against a federal copyright law at the heart of the industry's aggressive strategy, which has wrung payments from thousands of song-swappers since 2003.