AP - A female suicide bomber concealing explosives beneath her black robe struck outside a government complex northeast of Baghdad on Sunday, killing at least 15 people and wounding more than 40, U.S. and Iraqi officials said.

AP - The upper Mississippi River was expected to largely reach its high point Sunday, cresting at several spots north of St. Louis after rising for weeks and flooding towns in Missouri and Illinois.

AFP - Consumer nations stepped up pressure on the oil powers on Sunday to increase production at an international summit on spiralling crude prices in the Saudi city of Jeddah.

AFP - A ferry carrying more than 700 passengers and crew sank in heavy seas during a typhoon off the Philippines, and many people are feared dead, officials and reports said Sunday.

Reuters - Artillery shells fired from Pakistan landed in an Afghan army compound and close to an international military base in Afghanistan on Saturday and NATO forces returned fire, the alliance said.

Reuters - White House hopeful Barack Obama on Saturday accused his rival John McCain of favoring budget policies that would leave cities unable to pay for critical projects like flood-prevention systems and highways.

Reuters - Rockets fired from Pakistan hit a residential area in eastern Afghanistan killing four civilians, Afghan officials said on Sunday, one of three cross-border attacks around the same time overnight.

Reuters - Senior U.N. inspectors left for Syria on Sunday to investigate U.S. allegations that Damascus built a nuclear reactor in secret for nuclear weapons purposes before the site was destroyed in an Israeli air strike.

Reuters - An Israeli anti-torture watchdog said in a report on Sunday Israeli soldiers routinely abuse bound Palestinian detainees and it accused the military of "absolute indifference" towards such mistreatment.

Reuters - Armed supporters of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe have occupied the area where opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was to hold an election rally on Sunday, Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change said.

Reuters - The worst Midwest flooding in 15 years eased on Saturday after the swollen Mississippi River crested in St. Louis, but the toll was still rising as billions of dollars in damage to crops, communities and infrastructure were assessed.

Reuters - A Philippine passenger ferry capsized during a typhoon with more than 700 people on board, triggering a frantic search on Sunday for survivors.

AP - They're not traditional family heirlooms, but Larry Birkhead's is not a traditional family.

AP - Thunderstorms sparked as many as 75 wildfires in a wilderness area in far Northern California on Saturday as officials farther south got close to containing a blaze that destroyed several homes and forced thousands to evacuate.

AP - The decisive battle of the Iraq war is shaping up — not in the streets of Baghdad but in the halls of government where the future of America's role across the region is on the line.