The government is looking to spend $20 billion to outfit most federal employees with the latest telecommunications gear. Nancy Marshall Genzer reports telecom companies are pulling out the stops to win the contract.

Japanese stocks finished the day at their highest level in five years on Thursday. The benchmark Nikkei index climbed almost a full percent - and will likely close out 2005 as its best year since the 1980s bubble. But that isn't stopping the country from losing traction in Asia. A new Lehman Brother report says the economies in the rest of Asia added up are expected to overtake Japan's GDP this year. Jocelyn Ford reports on what's driving the shift.

This month marks the 25th anniversary of legislation that created the Superfund tax to clean up polluted industrial sites. But as Alex Cohen reports, the fund is currently out of money.

Eye doctors and dentists are experiencing an end-of-the-year rush of patients, as health care consumers scramble to finish up their flex plan allotments before the year ends. Rachel Dornhelm reports.