AP - Light snow fell in high elevations of the northern Rockies on Friday, with overnight accumulations of about 4 inches expected in some areas.

AP - NASA said Friday it will press ahead with plans to launch a supersized rover to Mars next year despite spiraling costs and schedule pressures.

AFP - Palm oil companies are clearing massive swathes of untouched forest in Indonesia's remote easternmost Papua region, environmental group Greenpeace said Friday.

AFP - A British woman and her 14-year-old daughter have drowned in a flash flood in eastern Spain which has been lashed by torrential rains, officials said on Friday.

AP - A tortoise, a hare, a mouse and a half-dozen mussels are some of the creatures that a conservation group hopes to save through a "Western Ark" project aimed at petitioning the government for federal protection.

AP - Scientists have confirmed the second case of a "virgin birth" in a shark. In a study reported Friday in the Journal of Fish Biology, scientists said DNA testing proved that a pup carried by a female Atlantic blacktip shark in the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center contained no genetic material from a male.

AP - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, touted by GOP presidential candidate John McCain as his expert on energy, seemed to have problems Thursday explaining whether the government bans oil exports — especially from her state's North Slope fields.

AFP - Global warming is driving tropical plant and animal species to higher altitudes, potentially leaving lowland rainforest with nothing to take their place, ecologists argue in this week's issue of Science.

AP - A World War II-era air traffic network that often forces planes to take longer, zigzagging routes is costing U.S. airlines billions of dollars in wasted fuel while an upgrade to a satellite-based system has languished in the planning stages for more than a decade.

AP - Strong storms buffeted the Southeast on Thursday, downing power lines and trees, pelting towns in Georgia and Florida with quarter-sized hail and spawning a tornado near Fargo, Georgia.