AP - No slow start for Venus Williams this time.

AP - The most powerful atom-smasher ever built could make some bizarre discoveries, such as invisible matter or extra dimensions in space, after it is switched on in August.

AP - Lawmakers budgeted just $100 million for damages when they reopened the government's discrimination settlement with black farmers. They probably should have handed over a blank check.

AP - An al-Qaida front organization claimed responsibility Saturday for a suicide bombing that killed more than 20 people — including three Marines — as the U.S. military stepped up pressure on extremists in northern Iraq.

AP - Robert Mugabe's mother told him when he was a child that he had been chosen by God to be a great leader. No wonder he thinks only divine power — not elections, not foreign critics, not a crumbling economy or a much younger opposition leader — can unseat him.

AP - Many of the rustic inns, restaurants and art galleries that dot the rugged Central Coast are nearly deserted this weekend at the height of the tourist season as a huge wildfire threatens Big Sur.

AP - A makeshift sandbag levee holding back the Mississippi River failed early Saturday and authorities said part of the town was evacuated.

AP - Pakistani forces bombarded suspected militant hideouts with mortar shells Saturday as the government launched a major offensive against Taliban fighters threatening the main city in the country's volatile northwest, officials said.

AP - Presidential rivals John McCain and Barack Obama on Saturday sought the love of Hispanics, beginning a four-month courtship with a pivotal swing-voting constituency.

AFP - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed North Korea Saturday to take the next step and give up its atomic weaponry after it disclosed some nuclear secrets and demolished part of its reactor.

AFP - Counting was under way in Zimbabwe on Saturday with President Robert Mugabe certain of victory after a one-man election marked by intimidation of voters and branded a sham by the opposition and the West.

Reuters - The commander of the Revolutionary Guards said Iran would impose controls on shipping in the vital Gulf oil transit route if the Islamic Republic came under attack, a newspaper reported on Saturday.

Reuters - An Iraqi al Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility on Saturday for a suicide attack in Anbar province earlier this week.

Reuters - Guatemala's interior minister died when a helicopter crashed on Friday in bad weather north of the Guatemalan capital, officials said.