AP - Soldiers were ordered to deepen a diversion channel to speed the draining of an unstable earthquake-formed lake that was threatening to burst, state television said Friday.

AP - World leaders at a U.N. summit embraced an ambitious strategy to combat a food crisis that is causing violent riots and threatening to push up to a billion people across the globe into hunger.

AP - Defense Secretary Robert Gates ousted the Air Force's top military and civilian leaders Thursday, holding them to account in a historic Pentagon shake-up after embarrassing nuclear mix-ups.

AP - Senate Republicans appeared ready to turn back an ambitious plan to reduce the risks of global warming after a week in which bipartisan bickering and political posturing seemed to drown out the environmental debate.

AP - The accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks said he welcomed martyrdom at U.S. hands, as he and four codefendants asked to be tried for war crimes without the benefit of lawyers.

AP - For young voters, Rosa Parks' refusal to sit at the back of a bus in Montgomery, Ala., in 1955 is schoolbook history. Even the racially charged 1992 riots in Los Angeles are a distant memory.

AFP - Zimbabwe police detained US and British diplomats Thursday in a dramatic confrontation at a roadblock following what the government described as a gathering at the home of an opposition supporter.

AFP - Two alleged plotters in the September 11, 2001 attacks Thursday demanded to be sentenced to death so they could become martyrs as the US military hearing of five men got underway here.

Reuters - Continental Airlines Inc said on Thursday it would cut 3,000 jobs, or about 6.5 percent of its work force, and retire 67 older planes as it scales down in the face of soaring fuel prices.

Reuters - President George W. Bush and his top policymakers misstated Saddam Hussein's links to terrorism and ignored doubts among intelligence agencies about Iraq's arms programs as they made a case for war, the Senate intelligence committee reported on Thursday.

Reuters - Verizon Wireless said on Thursday it would buy rural mobile service provider Alltel Corp for $28.1 billion including debt, which would vault it to first place in the U.S. market ahead of AT&T Inc .

Reuters - Iran said on Thursday it had given U.N. investigators more than 200 pages of answers to questions about intelligence reports that it secretly researched how to make atom bombs and declared "the matter is over."

Reuters - Defense Secretary Robert Gates fired the U.S. Air Force's top two leaders after a series of embarrassing missteps that raised questions about U.S. nuclear security, U.S. officials said on Thursday.

Reuters - The accused al Qaeda mastermind of the September 11 attacks stood in a U.S. military court on Thursday, sang a chant of praise to Allah and said he would welcome the death penalty.

Reuters - Zimbabwean police detained U.S. and British diplomats for several hours on Thursday, slashing the tires of their cars after they visited victims of political violence ahead of a presidential vote.