AFP - A NASA probe sent back never-before-seen pictures of Mars' north pole Monday, in the most ambitious mission to date to find if the Red Planet could support life.

Reuters - China launched a second weather satellite on Tuesday to help improve forecasts for this August's Beijing Olympics, state media reported.

AP - NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander spent its first full day in the Martian arctic plains checking its instruments in preparation for an ambitious digging mission to study whether the site could have once been habitable.

AFP - Chinese oil giant CNOOC is in talks with Canadian-based Talisman Energy over a possible takeover deal, a report in Hong Kong said Monday.

AFP - A giant panda missing from a nature reserve since a massive earthquake hit southwestern China two weeks ago has been caught alive, state media reported Monday.

AP - China grappled with backed-up rivers and reservoirs in danger of collapse, along with looming storms that threatened Monday to compound damage from the country's worst earthquake in three decades.

AP - Environment chiefs from the world's top industrial countries pledged "strong political will" Monday toward cutting greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050, declaring that developed nations should take the lead in battling global warming.

AP - Japan is about to roll out the Lexus of space station labs, a whopper in size and sophistication.