AP - The "June Gloom" so typical of summer in San Diego gave way to sunshine on the eve of the U.S. Open, filling the blue sky with fighter jets from Miramar that until Wednesday could only be heard in the fog. But that isn't the biggest buzz at Torrey Pines.

AP - Paul Newman has always been a fiercely private man, shunning the trappings of fame wrought by his Hollywood career while immersing himself in auto racing, philanthropy and a multimillion-dollar food business.

AP - Belgian Brewer InBev is offering a big payday to shareholders of Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc., but its bid to create the world's largest beer company is already facing a major obstacle — U.S. election-year politics.

AP - Marijuana potency increased last year to the highest level in more than 30 years, posing greater health risks to people who may view the drug as harmless, according to a report released Thursday by the White House.

AP - Taiwan and China agreed Thursday for the first time ever to set up permanent offices in each others' territories as the two sides met for their first formal talks in more than a decade, an official with one of the delegations said.

AP - House Democrats came so close to a veto-proof margin for their proposal to give the unemployed an extra three months of benefits.

AP - The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan released footage Thursday of a skirmish with militants that Pakistan claims resulted in an airstrike on one of its border posts that killed 11 of its troops.

AP - Nothing personal, Sen. Obama, but our re-election comes first. Barack Obama, for all his attention and primary successes, does not go over so well in a fair number of Democratic lawmakers' home districts. So it seems there is little chance that some will endorse him for president.

AP - President Bush can look forward to a hearty welcome from his old friend, the charismatic Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, and Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to Rome. That's not what he should expect in the streets, however, where anti-Bush sentiment over the war in Iraq still lingers.

AP - A tornado tore through a Boy Scout camp in the remote hills of western Iowa on Wednesday, killing at least four people and injuring 40, and setting off a frantic search to reach others in the piles of debris and downed trees.

AFP - Serbian police on Wednesday detained Stojan Zupljanin, one of the top Bosnian-Serb suspects wanted by the UN war crimes tribunal, officials said.

AFP - Pakistan said a "cowardly" air strike by US-led forces killed 11 Pakistani troops on Wednesday near the Afghan border and warned that it had harmed cooperation in the war against terrorism.

Reuters - A Sudanese airliner coming from Amman and Damascus burst into flames after landing in Khartoum on Tuesday night, killing at least 29 of the roughly 214 people on board, officials and witnesses said on Wednesday.

Reuters - Water-logged residents of the Midwest desperately shored up levees holding back rising rivers on Wednesday, while others abandoned their homes to the flood waters.

Reuters - The eldest child of an incestuous relationship between Austrian Josef Fritzl and the daughter he confined for 24 years has been reunited with her family after recovering from an artificial coma, doctors said.