Update 12:30pm:  Stories Making Headlines Today

President George W. Bush, at his Texas ranch, has spoken on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.  The White House says the two discussed ways to “end the violence” in the Mideast.  Spokesman Gordon Johndroe says Bush and Olmert discussed their “mutual desire” for peace.  Bush voiced concern about the strikes in Gaza and the attacks in Israel and also raised again his worries about civilian casualties in Gaza. Johndroe says Olmert gave Bush assurances that Israel is focusing its attack on the Hamas leadership and that it is trying to limit civilian casualties.  Israel began launching air strikes into Gaza last Saturday in response to rocket strikes by Hamas.  In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been furiously working the phones, pressing officials in the region on the need for a “durable and sustainable” ceasefire.

2008 ends in Afghanistan with a record 151 U.S. troops having died in the past year.  Military officials say the conflict is likely to get even bloodier in 2009, as thousands more American troops pour into the country.  U.S. forces suffered an average of 21 deaths in Afghanistan each month this year from May to October.  That was by far the deadliest six-month period in Afghanistan for American soldiers since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion to oust the Taliban.  The U.S. now has some 32,000 forces in the country.  In addition to the 151 U.S. troop deaths in Afghanistan this year, British troops suffered 50 deaths, and Canadian troops 28.  Other countries in the 41-nation coalition lost 56 troops combined.

In Pakistan, a senior government official says a militant in custody has confessed involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks and is giving investigators details of
the plot.  The revelation could add to pressure on Pakistan to either bring the militant and other suspects to trial, or extradite them to India.  The confession was first reported in the Wall Street Journal.  Gunmen targeted 10 sites, including two five-star hotels and a Jewish center, during the November siege on Mumbai’s financial capital.  They killed 164 people in a three-day reign of terror.  India and the United States say the militants who planned and carried out the attacks were Pakistani.  They’re demanding Islamabad take action against those responsible.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald has filed a motion seeking a 90-day extension to return of an indictment against Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.  Federal prosecutors normally have 30 days to file an indictment against a defendant.  That deadline would have been Jan. 7, and the extension would give prosecutors until April 7 instead.  Authorities arrested Blagojevich on Dec. 9 on corruption charges that accuse him of trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama’s
vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder.  Blagojevich has denied any wrongdoing.  In the motion filed Wednesday, prosecutors ask for more time because “multiple witnesses” have come forward in recent weeks and investigators have to review “thousands of intercepted phone calls.“

Stock prices are rising at midday on Wall Street’s final session of the year.  The Dow Jones industrial average is up 94 points at 8,763.  Gainers on the New York Stock Exchange hold a three-to-one lead over losers.  The Nasdaq Composite Index has gained 22 points at 1,573.  And the Standard-and Poor’s 500 Stock Index is up nearly 10 points at 900.  Stocks have been firm since the opening bell, as investors hope for better returns in 2009.  The Labor Department says new claims for unemployment dropped by a seasonally adjusted 94,000 to 492,000.  Even with the reported decline, said linked to the difficulty of seasonal adjustment, the job market is seen worsening in the weeks and months ahead.  Reflecting the ongoing pain for the jobless, the number of people continuing to draw unemployment aid is at the highest level since 1982.  Coming into today’s session, the Dow was down 34.5 percent for the year.

Three African nations are deploying troops to remote eastern Congo.  The move follows reports that Ugandan rebels in the region have killed more than 400 people in a series of massacres since Christmas.  The rebels and the Ugandan government have accused each other of being behind recent attacks in the remote area of Congo, where the rebels have bases.  A rebel spokesman denied responsibility for the attacks, saying the Ugandan army is trying to galvanize international support to fight the rebels.  The rebel group has waged one of Africa’s longest and most brutal wars for the last two decades.  The conflict has spilled out of northern Uganda and into Sudan and Congo.

Trials have been taking place in China stemming from the country’s tainted milk scandal.  In one trial, a former dairy boss testified that she began investigating product quality issues in May but did not notify authorities until August.  The state Xinhua News Agency says the former board chairwoman has pleaded guilty to charges of producing and selling fake or substandard products.  Three other executives face similar charges after being linked to infant formula contaminated with the industrial chemical melamine.  They could be executed if convicted.  Melamine, commonly used to make plastics and fertilizer, has been blamed for the deaths of at least six children and sickening nearly 300,000 others.  Xinhua says 17 others have gone on trial over past few days.  No verdicts have been announced.

A Pennsylvania judge has sentenced a retired Army colonel to a prison term for arranging for a classmate at the Army War College to take a paternity test in his place.  Cumberland County President Judge Edgar Bayley sentenced Scott Carlson on Tuesday to a term of four to 23 months in county prison.  The 53-year-old former officer was convicted of having arranged to have a fellow colonel at the war college in Carlisle, Pa., submit a DNA sample and thumbprint for the paternity test in 2006.  Prosecutors said he hatched the scheme to avoid paying child support for a 10-year-old girl he fathered through an extramarital affair with an enlisted woman.

Ohio’s highest court has turned down an appeal filed by a Toledo priest convicted of murdering a nun.  The Ohio Supreme Court said Wednesday that it is declining to hear the appeal of the Rev. Gerald Robinson.  Robinson was convicted in 2006 of killing Sister Margaret Ann Pahl.  In 1980, her body was found Easter weekend in a hospital chapel where both worked.  She had been strangled and stabbed 31 times in her face, neck and chest.  Robinson, now 70, was a chaplain at the hospital at the time.  The priest’s attorneys argued that he did not get a fair trial because his arrest came so long after the killing.  Robinson was
sentenced to a mandatory term of 15 years to life in prison.

Police say two Maryland teens lit a boy’s hair on fire and recorded the attack on a camera phone.  The Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office says the victim was sleeping early Sunday at a home in Eden in eastern Maryland when 17-year-old Forrest Wilson poured lighter fluid on his hair and set it ablaze.  The victim put out the fire, then discovered a 14-year-old boy was recording the video.  Investigators say the video showed Wilson light the 16-year-old victim’s hair on fire. Police did not know a motive and witheld the victim’s name.  The victim, whose hair was singed, notified his parents later that day.  Wilson and the 14-year-old are charged with assault and other charges - Wilson as an adult, and the younger teen as a juvenile.

“SpongeBob SquarePants” is at risk of being thrown off Time Warner Cable.  Media giant Viacom says Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central and its 16 other channels could go dark for 13 million subscribers just after midnight if a new fee deal with Time Warner Cable isn’t agreed to.  The impasse would mean “SpongeBob” and other popular shows like Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” could be cut off.  The nation’s second-largest cable operator primarily serves customers in New York state, the Carolinas, Ohio, Southern California and Texas.  A Time Warner Cable executive says Viacom asked for fee increases of between 22 percent and 36 percent per channel, which he says could increase customers’ cable bills.  A Viacom spokeswoman says the requested increase was in the very low double-digit percentage range.