Reuters - Iran's chief nuclear negotiator expressed hope for "good and constructive" talks when he left Tehran on Friday for a meeting in Geneva with world powers on the country's disputed nuclear program.

Reuters - Pope Benedict called for all religions to unite against terrorism and resolve conflicts peacefully on Friday and heard an Islamic leader urge Christians to overcome "misconceptions and prejudices" about Muslims.

AP - The flags around Royal Birkdale flapped in the stiff breeze Friday morning. A light, misting rain fell from the gray clouds, which obscured any hint of the sun. By British Open standards, a normal morning. Compared to 24 hours earlier, a huge improvement.

AP - Paul McCartney told Quebec nationalists on Thursday "to smoke the pipes of peace" over their opposition to his free concert celebrating the city's 400th anniversary.

AP - The South tips the scales again as the nation's fattest region, according to a new government survey.

AP - Sen. Barack Obama 's trip to the Middle East and Europe marks his first high-profile step onto the international stage, a campaign-season audition of sorts for a presidential hopeful pledging a new era in diplomacy and an end to the U.S. combat role in Iraq.

AP - European terrorists are trying to enter the United States with European Union passports, and there is no guarantee officials will catch them every time, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday.

AP - Iraq's government hopes to bring the entire country under its security control by year's end. But one critical area stands in the way: the western province of Anbar, where the Sunni insurgency was born and later received its first blows from a civil uprising.

AP - Pope Benedict XVI on Friday urged religious leaders of all kinds to unite against those who use faith to divide communities — an apparent reference to terrorism in the name of religion.

AP - Salim Hamdan is a small player with a big role. A former driver for Osama bin Laden, he is about to become the first Guantanamo prisoner to be tried for war crimes in a major test of the U.S. system for prosecuting alleged terrorists.

AP - During his tenure at the Federal Communications Commission, Jonathan Adelstein has been a fierce critic of government policies that allow big media companies to get bigger. So it came as a surprise when the Democratic commissioner put forth a proposal that would allow the nation's only two satellite radio companies to merge.

AP - Inferior electrical work by private contractors on U.S. military bases in Iraq is more widespread than the Pentagon has acknowledged, according to a published report.

AFP - Spain's supreme court Thursday overturned the guilty verdicts on four of the 21 people convicted over the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people in 2004.

AFP - Samir Kantar, Lebanon's longest serving prisoner who was freed by Israel in a swap, said on Thursday he had no regrets over the triple murder three decades ago that put him behind bars.