AFP - Eight giant pandas were flown Saturday from quake-ravaged southwestern China to Beijing, where they will be housed at a new zoo exhibit built for the Olympic Games, state press said.

AP - Very unsettled weather was expected in the western half of the country on Saturday, from rain and high elevation snow in California to heavy rain and thunderstorms in the western Plains.

AP - It's been a tough few years for the shelled sentinels scratching out a living in Utah's southwestern desert.

AP - The world is losing momentum in the battle against global warming, the U.N. climate chief warned on Saturday, urging environmental ministers from wealthy nations to revive the effort by setting clear targets for reducing greenhouse gases.

AP - Stormy weather, natural gas leaks and the threat of explosions kept hundreds of anxious residents from assessing the damage to their homes on Friday, a day after a large tornado tore through a 35-mile stretch of northern Colorado, killing one person and injuring dozens.

Reuters - A tornado on Thursday damaged the headquarters of beef and pork producer JBS-Swift & Company in Greeley, Colorado, but missed its beef plant, company officials said.

AP - America's wildlife refuges are so short of money that one-third have no staff, boardwalks and buildings are in disrepair, and drug dealers are using them to grow marijuana and make methamphetamine, a group pushing for more funding says.

AP - Once hunted to the brink of extinction, humpback whales have made a dramatic comeback in the North Pacific Ocean over the past four decades, a new study says.

AP - A robotic spacecraft scheduled to land Sunday on Mars will be operated by NASA. But it's scientists at a University of Arizona lab who will be calling the shots on what the robot does.

AFP - Six rare giant pandas were transferred Friday from the world-famous breeding centre at Wolong, joining eight other animals who will leave the site in southwest China due to severe damage caused by last week's quake.

Reuters - A new chapter in Mars exploration opens on Sunday when a small robotic probe jets down to the planet's arctic circle to learn if ice beneath its surface ever had the right chemistry to support life, mission managers said on Thursday.