AP - The Navy is challenging Hawaii's authority to protect whales by restricting the use of sonar during training exercises, environmentalists and military representatives say.

AFP - Japan defended its practice of 'scientific' whale hunting at the annual International Whaling Commission meeting here on Wednesday, insisting it had yielded important scientific results.

AP - NASA unveiled a beefed-up redesign of a proposed moon rocket Wednesday, saying the Ares V spacecraft that is to carry astronauts to the lunar surface in 12 years will be around 38 stories tall and carry a heftier load than originally planned.

Reuters - A Catholic priest said mass over the site of a capsized ferry in the central Philippines on Thursday as divers prepared to bore a hole in the vessel to speed up the retrieval of bodies.

AP - Scientists unearthed a skull of the most primitive four-legged creature in Earth's history, which should help them better understand the evolution of fish to advanced animals that walk on land.

AP - Why is Mars two-faced? Scientists say fresh evidence supports the theory that a monster impact punched the red planet, leaving behind perhaps the largest gash on any heavenly body in the solar system.

AP - Government scientists are launching a five-year project Thursday aimed at safeguarding the world's chocolate supply by dissecting the genome of the cocoa bean.

AP - Reeling in a 45-pound grouper used to be just an average day on the water in the Florida Keys. The abundance of behemoth fish attracted anglers from around the world in the early 1900s, including adventurers such as Ernest Hemingway and Zane Grey, who pulled in monsters from the clear, warm depths off Key West.