AFP - Peruvian President Alan Garcia on Saturday named Yehude Simon, a leftist governor once jailed for alleged links to outlawed Tupac Amaru rebels, as the country's next prime minister.

AFP - Almost half of Hong Kong's aid package to help China's quake-stricken Sichuan will be used to restore a giant panda reserve, the government said Sunday.

Reuters - U.S. business tycoon Richard Garriott blasted off into space aboard a Russian rocket Sunday watched by his father, a NASA astronaut who went into space at the height of the Cold War.

AP - Two Americans and a Russian are on their way to the international space station.

Reuters - Scientists have sequenced the genome of the giant panda, an achievement which may aid efforts to protect the endangered species, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Saturday.

AP - Unseasonably cold temperatures, rain and snow were forecast for much of the West on Saturday, while showers and thunderstorms were expected in parts of the Southeast.

AP - Pick up a Mississippi gopher frog and it covers its eyes with its forefeet, like someone afraid to see what's coming next. And for at least a decade, it's had a good reason not to look.

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 - The ongoing global economic turmoil and increasingly strained ties between Moscow and Washington will not stand in the way of further space exploration, Russia's space agency chief said Saturday.

AFP - Peruvian President Alan Garcia accepted Friday the resignation of his entire 13-member cabinet, in a bid to avert an opposition censure resolution in Congress over a oil-industry kickback scandal.

AFP - US space agency NASA said Friday it still plans to launch an ambitious mission to Mars late next year despite technical hurdles and budget difficulties.