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AP - The massive new tax bill signed into law by President Barack Obama is filled with all kinds of holiday stocking stuffers for businesses: tax breaks for producing TV shows, grants for putting up windmills, rum subsidies for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

AP - Holiday procrastinators packed stores Friday morning, grabbing those last few presents, gift cards and the finishing touches for Christmas dinner.

AP - Travelers faced the prospect of spending Christmas Eve in Paris' main airport instead of at a feast-laden family table, after new snowfall and shortages of deicing fluid revived travel troubles across Europe.

AP - Vice President Joe Biden said Friday that the country is evolving on the issue of gay marriage and he thinks it's inevitable there will be national consensus.

AFP - British stocks closed above the psychological 6,000-point level for the first time in 30 months on Friday in a Santa rally on a shortened Christmas Eve trading session.

AP - Lots of military secrets are hidden behind the gleaming walls of NORAD'S headquarters building, including this one: Just how do they get Santa's flight path onto their computer screens every Christmas Eve?

AP - Diana Taurasi is facing one of the most difficult challenges to her stellar basketball career.

AFP - Super Bowl champions New Orleans can punch their post-season ticket with a victory over Atlanta on Monday, one of a host of teams still in the hunt as the NFL heads into the Christmas weekend.

AFP - Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp has said Jonathan Woodgate could go out on loan in a bid to boost the defender's recovery from a longstanding groin injury.

Reuters - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev praised President Barack Obama on Friday for winning U.S. support for an arms treaty at the center of a reset in ties and lamented the slow pace of his own drive to modernize Russia.

AP - Stymied in Congress, the Obama administration is moving unilaterally to clamp down on power plant and oil refinery greenhouse emissions, announcing plans for developing new standards over the next year.

AP - Thousands of tourists, pilgrims and clergy converged on Bethlehem on Friday as the town of Jesus' birth prepared to celebrate Christmas Eve.