AP - A joint gathering of major developed and developing nations on Wednesday agreed that climate change was "one of the great global challenges of our time" and pledged to back a United Nations effort to conclude new climate pact by 2009. The major economies said they supported longterm and midterm goals for greenhouse-gas reductions, but endorsed no targets.

Reuters - U.S. drivers can expect to shell out more than $4 a gallon, on average, for gasoline for the rest of 2008 and prices will keep rising until November, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Tuesday.

AFP - Russia faces an increase in disease, drought and damage to infrastructure because of climate change, the environmental group WWF said on Tuesday, urging the authorities to "take a lead" on the issue.

AP - The United States and leaders of the Czech Republic agreed Tuesday to place a radar system in this former Soviet satellite that would warn of long-range missiles coming to Europe from the Middle East.

AP - World leaders on Tuesday endorsed halving world emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050, edging forward in the battle against global warming but stopping short of tough, nearer-term targets.

AP - NASA has tentatively set the final space shuttle mission for May 31, 2010, four months before the shuttle fleet retires.

AFP - A group of US researchers laid out the foundations Monday for a new online library on human genetics stored within the existing framework of open-access encyclopedia Wikipedia.

AFP - US automobile giant General Motors (GM) will announce on Tuesday that it will build the world's largest rooftop solar power station at its biggest factory in Europe, the Financial Times reported.

AP - In the hills above the University of California's Berkeley campus, nine protesters gathered in front of the home of a toxicology professor, their faces covered with scarves and hoods despite the warm spring weather.

AP - Hurricane Bertha strengthened to a Category 3 storm Monday as it swirled in the central Atlantic, but it posed no immediate threat to land.