AP - Scientists at the European Space Agency are preparing for the first fly-by of an asteroid by their deep-space explorer, Rosetta, on a mission to solve the mystery of the birth of the solar system.

Reuters - Republican John McCain cast himself as an independent-minded reformer on Thursday, vowed "change is coming" if he is elected president and promised to create millions of jobs by developing new energy sources.

AFP - British and Russian shareholders on Thursday announced an end to a months-long feud for control of joint oil venture TNK-BP, in a move hailed by the Kremlin as a positive signal to foreign investors.

AP - At the National Governors Association conference where she first met John McCain, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin had other business: making her case to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne against classifying the polar bear as a threatened species.

AP - NASA moved shuttle Atlantis to the launch pad on Thursday for a flight next month to the Hubble Space Telescope after being waylaid by a pair of tropical storms.

Reuters - Powerful Hurricane Ike charged across the Atlantic toward the Bahamas and the U.S. east coast on Thursday while Tropical Storm Hanna's death toll from floods and mudslides in Haiti grew to 90.

AP - A chunk of ice shelf nearly the size of Manhattan has broken away from Ellesmere Island in Canada's northern Arctic, another dramatic indication of how warmer temperatures are changing the polar frontier, scientists said Wednesday.