Reuters - A day after he fired the top two Air Force leaders, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is expected to pick Michael Donley, a senior Pentagon official, as Air Force secretary, a senior defense official said on Friday.

Reuters - The U.S. unemployment rate surged to 5.5 percent in May, its highest in more than 3-1/2 years, as the barely growing economy lost jobs for the fifth straight month.

Reuters - Democrat Hillary Clinton laid plans on Friday for an event she hoped she would never have to hold, her endorsement of U.S. presidential campaign rival Barack Obama, which party strategists say needs to be convincing to avoid a rift.

AP - Barry Bonds renewed his claims of innocence Friday, pleading not guilty to 15 federal charges of lying to a grand jury about his performance-enhancing drug use.

AP - Derrie-Air has been exposed. Readers of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News opened their papers Friday to see ads for a new airline called Derrie-Air, which purportedly charges passengers by the pound.

AP - Ed McMahon blames the possible foreclosure of his multimillion-dollar Beverly Hills house on a set of problems all too familiar to many Americans: a foundering economy, health problems and poor planning.

AP - More than three years after a poacher shot off her upper beak, a bald eagle named Beauty can finally live up to her name — with the help of volunteers.

AP - Defense Secretary Robert Gates is likely to recommend to President Bush that he nominate a former Air Force executive, Michael B. Donley, to the service's top civilian post, a senior defense official said Friday.

AP - Senate Republicans on Friday blocked a global warming bill that would have required major reductions in greenhouse gases, pushing debate over the world's biggest environmental concern to next year for a new Congress and president.

AP - President Bush is considering new measures to help stimulate the battered economy, the White House said Friday.

AP - Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton met rival Barack Obama face-to-face with no one else present, hours before her campaign formally announced she would endorse him Saturday at an event in Washington.

AP - Wall Street plunged Friday on two troubling economic developments: oil prices that surged more than $10 a barrel to a fresh record and a jump in unemployment that was much larger than the market anticipated. The Dow Jones industrial average fell more than 300 points.

AFP - The UN Security Council expressed concern after Zimbabwe police detained US and British diplomats in a dramatic confrontation at a roadblock amid signs of an intensifying crackdown ahead of a presidential run-off election.

AFP - The alleged mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks and two co-conspirators defiantly demanded Thursday to be sentenced to death at a US military hearing here, saying they had long sought martyrdom.