Reuters - An Afghan peace council to pursue talks with the Taliban has been set up, President Hamid Karzai said on Saturday, the latest step in a gradual move toward reconciliation with the Islamist insurgents.
AP - Protesters hurled shoes and eggs Saturday as Tony Blair held the first public signing of his memoir amid high security in the Irish capital. Hundreds more people lined up to have their books autographed — evidence that the divisions left by Blair's decade as British leader have yet to heal.
Reuters - Tens of thousands protested across France on Saturday against a clampdown on immigrants, launching a week of action over security policy and pension reform on which President Nicolas Sarkozy has staked his political reputation.
AFP - South Sudan must shift its massive dependence on oil and instead work to develop its agricultural sector, the World Bank's vice president for Africa said on Saturday.
AP - Frustrated, discouraged and just plain mad, a lot of people who have lost jobs — or know someone who has — now want to see the names of Democrats on pink slips. And that's jeopardizing the party's chances in Ohio and all across the country in November's elections.
McClatchy Newspapers - WASHINGTON — The congressional ethics investigation of Rep. Joe Wilson, R-S.C., is broader than previously disclosed and goes well beyond his use of $12 in per diem expense money to buy six decorative goblets in Afghanistan last year.
AP - Chimneys and walls crumbled to the ground, roads cracked in half and residents were knocked off their feet as a powerful magnitude-7.1 earthquake rocked New Zealand's South Island early Saturday. The prime minister said it was a miracle no one was killed.
AP - Despite the smells of fried dough and roasted meat wafting from the Minnesota State Fair, Salim and Zuleyha Ozonder were focused on the people who were leaving, not the food or festivities beckoning from across the street.
AP - A judge has ordered a U.S.-born suspected drug lord known as "La Barbie" held for 40 days pending an investigation into organized crime and other possible charges, authorities announced Saturday.
AP - Brazilian authorities say criminals hijacked an ambulance and forced the driver to give them a ride to a slum in Rio de Janeiro before taking their patient to the hospital.
AP - Egypt's most prominent democracy advocate accused President Hosni Mubarak's government Saturday of posting Facebook photos of his daughter in swimsuits and at events where alcohol was served in an attempt to discredit him.
AP - A whistle-blowing, drum-beating crowd of thousands demonstrated in Paris on Saturday against expulsions of Gypsies as well as other new security measures adopted by President Nicolas Sarkozy's government.
AP - A light aircraft carrying skydivers crashed in flames Saturday near a popular tourist spot in New Zealand's Southern Alps, killing nine people including four foreign tourists, police said.
AP - BP crews worked Saturday to slowly raise the 300-ton blowout preventer that failed to stop oil from spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, careful not to damage or drop a key piece of evidence in the spill investigation.
AP - BP crews worked Saturday to slowly raise the 300-ton blowout preventer that failed to stop oil from spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, careful not to damage or drop a key piece of evidence in the spill investigation.
AP - A healthy economy needs bustling Main Streets and a thriving middle class even more than a healthy stock market, President Barack Obama said as he reaffirmed his commitment to work hard for America's hardworking men and women.
Reuters - Nationalized Anglo Irish Bank will be "decommissioned," with a decision on its fate expected within a few weeks, a junior government minister was quoted on Saturday as saying.
AP - A five-day search for the missing son of top boxing promoter Bob Arum ended when a helicopter located John Arum's body on a rugged Washington state mountain in North Cascades National Park, authorities say.
Reuters - President Barack Obama, previewing a big push on the U.S. economy next week, on Saturday defended policies that he said "have stopped the bleeding" and put the middle class on the road to recovery.
AP - A claim by Arizona's governor that rising violence along the U.S.-Mexico border has led to headless bodies turning up in the desert came back to haunt her during a stammering debate performance in which she failed to back it up.
AP - A claim by Arizona's governor that rising violence along the U.S.-Mexico border has led to headless bodies turning up in the desert came back to haunt her during a stammering debate performance in which she failed to back it up.
AP - Authorities searched a Northern California landfill Friday for signs of a missing man authorities said might be a fifth murder victim linked to a suspect who was shot and killed by police after a high-speed chase.
AP - A security guard who called 911 after a gunman entered Discovery Channel's headquarters calmly told the operator: "You're probably going to need a sniper."
AP - The head of a labor recruiting company accused of exploiting 400 workers from Thailand and forcing them to work on U.S. farms pleaded not guilty Friday, part of what the FBI calls the largest human-trafficking case charged in U.S. history
AP - Maryland health officials have ordered two doctors to stop performing abortions after a woman was critically injured during a procedure last month.
AP - What now for the Gulf? News of another oil rig fire in the Gulf of Mexico, so soon after the BP oil spill, has set off a wave of anxiety along the Gulf Coast and prompted calls for the government to extend its six-month ban on deepwater drilling.
AP - A former US Airways Express pilot will spend nine months in prison for selling a powdered drink mix over the Internet that he claimed was "100 percent" effective in helping drug-using truck drivers, pilots and train engineers pass federally mandated drug tests.
AP - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton sought to inject urgency into Israeli-Palestinian peace talks Friday, warning the negotiations may be "the last chance for a very long time" to reach an agreement.
AP - One of the investors in a proposed Islamic center near ground zero is a Long Island medical clinic owner whose expressions of sympathy for Palestinians included a donation to a charity later shut down for links to Hamas.
Reuters - Chinese officials have ordered state companies to meet investment bankers to explore ways to block BHP Billiton's $39 billion bid for Potash Corp, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Time.com - No one really thinks much will come out of the direct talks with the Palestinians but, when the issue is Bibi, up come visions of Gorbachev -- and Nixon in China
Reuters - Chinese officials have ordered state companies to meet investment bankers to explore ways to block BHP Billiton's $39 billion bid for Potash Corp, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Reuters - Hipster brand American Apparel Inc is in talks to bring in an outside restructuring firm as the manufacturer and retailer struggles to fix its flagging operations, sources told Reuters on Friday.
AP - Federal investigators said Friday that a suspicious fire that damaged construction equipment at the site of a future mosque in Tennessee was arson and offered a $20,000 reward for information leading to an arrest.