BERLIN (AP) -- Cheered by an enormous international crowd, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama on Thursday summoned Europeans and Americans together to "defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it" as surely as they conquered communism a generation ago....

PERTH, Australia (AP) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Pakistan needs to do more to prevent Taliban militants from launching attacks into Afghanistan from its territory....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Three ballistic missile crew members in North Dakota fell asleep while holding classified launch code devices this month, triggering an investigation by military and National Security Agency experts, the Air Force said Thursday....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Secret Service has asked for an extra $9.5 million to cover unexpected costs of protecting the presidential candidates during what has turned into an historic year for the agency's campaign security job....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Justice Department in 2002 told the CIA that its interrogators would be safe from prosecution for violations of anti-torture laws if they believed "in good faith" that harsh techniques used to break prisoners' will would not cause "prolonged mental harm."...

PHOENIX (AP) -- A former student shot three people Thursday in a computer room at a Phoenix community college, injuring one of them critically, authorities said. The gunman fled but a suspect was arrested nearby....

MIAMI (AP) -- The grandmother of a missing 2-year-old Orlando girl told an emergency dispatcher that a car driven by the girl's mother smelled like there had been a dead body inside, according to recordings of 911 calls released Thursday....

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- Scientists have exposed some of the mystery behind the northern lights. On Thursday, NASA released findings that indicate magnetic explosions about one-third of the way to the moon cause the northern lights, or aurora borealis, to burst in spectacular shapes and colors, and dance across the sky....

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- If you haven't heard of "Twilight," ask a teenager. The best-selling young-adult book isn't bound for the big screen until December, but fan frenzy for the film practically took over Comic-Con on Thursday....

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) -- Peyton Manning's voice resonated through the Colts training camp Thursday - from 90 miles away. The NFL's two-time MVP spent reporting day at home in Indianapolis, his valuable left knee immobilized after having surgery to remove an infected bursa sac....

BERLIN (AP) -- Cheered by an enormous international crowd, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama on Thursday summoned Europeans and Americans together to "defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it" as surely as they conquered communism a generation ago....

PERTH, Australia (AP) -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Pakistan needs to do more to prevent Taliban militants from launching attacks into Afghanistan from its territory....

YAY TWIN GONE, Myanmar (AP) -- No matter how much she loved the river and sea that once provided her family's daily food, Tin Tin Latt now just wants to stay away from the water that widowed her, killed two of her children and destroyed the family's livelihood....

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- One of South Africa's leading female jurists who won acclaim defending apartheid opponents was nominated Thursday to serve as the next United Nations high commissioner for human rights....

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba (AP) -- A Moroccan prisoner released from Guantanamo in 2004 was Osama bin Laden's top bodyguard, according to testimony Thursday in the war crimes trial of another alleged bodyguard....

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- New Zealand students protesting the Iraq war offered a reward to anyone who carries out a citizen's arrest of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit to the country Friday....

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) -- The real Dragan Dabic has emerged - and the 66-year-old construction worker was shocked Thursday to discover his identity had apparently been stolen by one of the world's most notorious war crimes suspects....

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- Iran signaled Thursday that it will no longer cooperate with U.N. experts probing for signs of clandestine nuclear weapons work, confirming the investigation is at a dead end a year after it began....

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Both Israelis and Palestinians came away from Barack Obama's visit to the Holy Land with the feeling he would do more for Mideast peace than President Bush has. But neither side seemed fully convinced that Obama would have their interests at heart....

BERLIN (AP) -- The warm welcome that washed over Barack Obama during his Berlin appearance Thursday made it abundantly clear that Europeans have a strong desire to heal the trans-Atlantic rift and the Democratic president candidate is a good choice for the job....

BERLIN (AP) -- Cheered by an enormous international crowd, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama on Thursday summoned Europeans and Americans together to "defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it" as surely as they conquered communism a generation ago....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Secret Service has asked for an extra $9.5 million to cover unexpected costs of protecting the presidential candidates during what has turned into an historic year for the agency's campaign security job....

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain had his own German experience Thursday - at a restaurant in Ohio. He asserted that he was happy to devote his time this week to touring the nation's heartland....

Calculated political ploy. Timely foreign outreach. A dash of each? Ask voters across the country about Barack Obama's image-packed week of foreign travel and you'll get a mix of admiration, suspicion, even a couple of bored shrugs....

PERTH, Australia (AP) -- If Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is worried that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is complicating the Bush administration's foreign policy with freelance campaign diplomacy, she isn't showing it....

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Both Israelis and Palestinians came away from Barack Obama's visit to the Holy Land with the feeling he would do more for Mideast peace than President Bush has. But neither side seemed fully convinced that Obama would have their interests at heart....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain is scheduled to meet with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, on Friday in Colorado....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal commission is working to recruit 2 million poll workers for the November election to help handle what could be a record turnout for the presidential election....

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) -- Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, fresh from an Iraq trip with Democrat Barack Obama, said the presidential candidates should focus on the war's future and stop arguing over the success of last year's troop surge....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrat Barack Obama has opened a big lead among Hispanic voters, winning support from the vast majority of those who had voted for rival Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic primaries, according to a poll released Thursday....

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- Scientists have exposed some of the mystery behind the northern lights. On Thursday, NASA released findings that indicate magnetic explosions about one-third of the way to the moon cause the northern lights, or aurora borealis, to burst in spectacular shapes and colors, and dance across the sky....

TOKYO (AP) -- Japanese and Mongolian scientists have successfully recovered the complete skeleton of a 70-million-year-old young dinosaur, a nature museum announced Thursday....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Voluntary pollution-reduction programs touted by the Bush administration as part of the solution to global warming have "limited potential" to reduce greenhouse gases, according to an internal government watchdog....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sixteen years after Barbie dolls declared, "Math class is tough!" girls are proving that when it comes to math they are just as tough as boys. In the largest study of its kind, girls measured up to boys in every grade, from second through 11th. The research was released Thursday in the journal Science....

BROOKFIELD, Ill. (AP) -- A zoo in suburban Chicago plans to reopen an exhibit where 16 stingrays died last week when a malfunction let the tank's water get too warm....

FORT STANTON CAVE, N.M. (AP) -- Hundreds of feet beneath Earth's surface, a few seasoned cave explorers venture where no human has set foot. Their headlamps illuminate mud-covered walls, gypsum crystals and mineral deposits....

SALEM, Ore. (AP) -- Seven Western states are joining four Canadian provinces to propose a plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions through use of a "cap and trade" system....

MIAMI (AP) -- The sabal palm, Florida's state tree, is under attack by a microscopic killer that has scientists stumped. An unknown but growing number of sabal palms in the Tampa Bay area have died from a mysterious disease that researchers are struggling to identify. Even after scientists pinpoint the disease - and that could take years - they will have to learn what insect spreads it. The disease will be tough to stop....

HOUSTON (AP) -- A "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico off the Texas-Louisiana coast this year is likely to be the biggest ever and last longer than ever before, with marine life affected for hundreds of miles, a scientist warned....

TOWSON, Md. (AP) -- Dr. Victor A. McKusick, a key architect of the Human Genome Project and a winner of the National Medal of Science, has died. He was 86....

BEIJING (AP) -- China's booming Internet population has surpassed the United States to become the world's biggest, with 253 million people online despite government controls on Web use, according to government data reported Friday....

NEW YORK (AP) -- T-R-O-U-B-L-E could loom for a Scrabble knockoff that has become one of the most popular activities on Facebook....

TOKYO (AP) -- A Japanese appeals court upheld the conviction of flamboyant former Internet mogul Takafumi Horie on Friday in an ongoing case that has come to symbolize this nation's effort to deal with white collar crime at emerging dot-coms....

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) -- Microsoft's CEO defended the software maker's decision to invest heavily in its unprofitable online business, but shed minimal light Thursday on specific steps it will take to challenge Google in the wake of the failed bid to buy Yahoo....

SAN FRANCISO (AP) -- An influential shareholder advisory firm endorsed the re-election of Yahoo Inc.'s entire board Thursday, reducing the chances that the Internet company's directors will be ousted for spurning Microsoft Corp.'s $47.5 billion takeover bid during the spring....

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Facebook Inc. is introducing more tools to help the software applications fueling the online hangout's popularity and is promising to intensify its efforts to weed out programs that violate its rules for protecting users' privacy....

NEW YORK (AP) -- Amazon.com Inc. shares leaped 13 percent Thursday after the Internet retailer showed that it doesn't seem to be bothered by the sputtering U.S. economy....

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Embarq Corp. has revealed more details about its exploration of a program that tracked Internet subscribers' Web-surfing habits for advertising purposes, telling Congress that it performed the test on 26,000 customers in a Kansas town....

NEW YORK (AP) -- With the market for electronic books still relatively sleepy, Sony Corp. is trying a new tack: untethering the latest model of its e-book reading device from its own online bookstore....

NEW YORK (AP) -- Qualcomm, the world's largest maker of chips that run cell phones, issued fourth-quarter and full-year earnings guidance Thursday that fell short of Wall Street targets, but the stock soared on a broad-ranging legal settlement....

MANILA, Philippines (AP) -- A Qantas flight en route to Australia from London made an emergency stop in Manila on Friday, and airport authorities discovered a big hole in the Boeing 747-400's fuselage near the right wing....

SHELTON, Wash. (AP) -- A Mason County sheriff's spokesman says the two men who were aboard a small float plane are dead after the aircraft crashed into a wooded area after taking off from a lake west of Shelton, Wash. The crash ignited a small wildfire....

SEATTLE (AP) -- Voters in urban areas of King, Snohomish and Pierce counties will be asked to vote this November on a $17.9 billion plan to extend light rail service to Lynnwood, Redmond and north Federal Way, and to expand bus service....

YAKIMA, Wash. (AP) -- Workers at the nation's most contaminated nuclear site have begun demolishing the building that surrounds a leaky pool built in the 1950s to hold spent fuel from nuclear reactors....

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) -- The former fugitive and aspiring country singer known as "Cowboy Mike" has been sentenced to nearly 48 years in prison for the rape and murder of a Lacey woman....

BOISE, Idaho (AP) -- Convicted child-killer Joseph Edward Duncan III is mentally competent to face a death penalty hearing, a federal judge ruled Thursday....

SEATTLE (AP) -- Farmers and ranchers struggling against high grain prices got some help Thursday from a federal judge who cleared the way for an emergency federal program opening private conservation land to hay production and cattle grazing....

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) -- An assisted suicide initiative will appear on Washington's statewide ballot in November....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Sen. Maria Cantwell has blocked three nominations to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission - including the president's choice to lead the panel - saying the federal agency has failed to regulate oil markets even as the price of gasoline hits record highs....

TACOMA, Wash. (AP) -- Gov. Chris Gregoire took her re-election campaign to the waters of Puget Sound on Thursday, highlighting progress but also noting that continued efforts are needed to clean up the sound's waters....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House voted Thursday to triple money to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis around the world, giving new life and new punch to a program credited with saving or prolonging millions of lives in Africa alone....

ATLANTA (AP) -- More than 1,000 people died over two years from an illegal version of the painkiller fentanyl, the government reported Thursday in its first national tally of those deaths....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Scientists will have to take "enormous intellectual leaps" to develop an AIDS vaccine in the coming years, say researchers clearly frustrated by the failure of a once-promising shot....

NORCROSS, Ga. (AP) -- After three surgeries, Judy Sherer still had chronic pain in her left shoulder. She'd lost faith in her doctors, and in despair tried a new health benefit offered by her employer....

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- The head of a prominent cancer research institute issued an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff Wednesday: Limit cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer....

Scientists may have found a way to test for and possibly avoid the most serious side effect of cholesterol-lowering statin drugs, one of the top-selling medicines in the world....

ATLANTA (AP) -- More older children are being diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder while the rate is holding steady for children under 12, according to a government report released Wednesday....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It was a hot lead for detectives on a cold case. People suddenly were getting salmonella at a Minnesota restaurant more than 1,000 miles from the center of the nation's outbreak....

NEW YORK (AP) -- Microsoft founder Bill Gates and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg are pooling their piles of money to pour $375 million into a global effort to cut smoking....

NEWPORT, N.H. (AP) -- When "spastic ball" starts, it's better to duck first and ask questions later....