Coming Thursday:

• President-elect Obama is expected to announce the nomination of Mary Schapiro to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.

• Economic reports: weekly unemployment claims and mortgage rates; the leading indicators for November; and the Philadelphia Fed's measure of regional manufacturing activity for December.

• The Institute of International Finance presents forecasts for 2009.

• President Bush will deliver remarks at the American Enterprise Institute.

• Secretary Michael Chertoff reports on the state of homeland security and delivers his department's accomplishments for the year.

• The Department of Homeland Security's Task Force on New Americans releases its final report. The task force's mission is "to help immigrants learn English, embrace the common core of American civic culture, and fully become American."

• It's International Migrants Day, which the United Nations proclaimed to recognize and protect "the human rights and fundamental freedoms of migrants."

• VIP "hooker booker" Temeka Rachelle Lewis will be sentenced in New York for having arranged a tryst between a call girl and former Gov. Eliot Spitzer.

• Nevada Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki has a court day for his indictment charges of mismanaging a multibillion-dollar college savings program when he was state treasurer.

• Attention, North Pole: Transportation Secretary Mary Peters will announce "efforts to address holiday air travel delays for Santa."