AP - Sales of new homes fell in June for the seventh time in the past eight months, but the decline was less than had been expected, raising faint hopes that the nation's severe housing recession could be approaching a bottom.

AP - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Friday that Barack Obama's policies would have led to defeat in both Iraq and Afghanistan and possibly pushed the entire Middle East into war, stepping up his criticism of his Democratic rival.

AP - The first of 200 ships idled by a massive oil spill began crawling down the Mississippi River Friday after the Coast Guard reopened the waterway to traffic, but it could be days before all of the ships are cleared.

AP - The Senate cleared the last hurdle Friday to passing a housing rescue aimed at sparing hundreds of thousands of homeowners from foreclosure and bolstering troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

AP - Oil prices sank to their lowest point in weeks Friday as investors questioned whether crude has cooled enough to reflect a serious deterioration in demand. Prices at the pump eased to nearly $4 a gallon and the AAA auto club said that could drop another quarter by Labor Day.

AP - A hole the size of a small car in the underside of a Qantas jumbo jet carrying 346 passengers forced the pilot to make an emergency landing Friday after a rapid descent over the South China Sea.

AP - Democrat Barack Obama said Friday that Iran should promptly accept an international call to freeze its uranium enrichment program, which some nations see as a potential step toward obtaining nuclear weapons, and not wait for the next U.S. president.

AFP - A Qantas Boeing 747 flying to Melbourne made an emergency landing in Manila on Friday after a dramatic mid-air rupture that left a "gaping hole" in its fuselage, officials and passengers said.

AFP - US presidential hopeful Barack Obama was due in Paris on Friday a day after telling a vast crowd of 200,000 people in Berlin that Americans and Europeans must tear down walls between estranged allies, races and faiths, in a soaring challenge to a new political generation.

Reuters - An accounting change that could force banks to bring trillions of dollars of off-balance sheet transactions back on their books will be implemented in a way that will not create unnecessary shocks, the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday.

Reuters - A driver for Osama bin Laden was not told of any rights against self-incrimination under years of interrogation, FBI agents told the Guantanamo war crimes court on Thursday.

Reuters - A Qantas Airways plane made an emergency landing in Manila on Friday after part of its undercarriage blew off, triggering a loss in cabin pressure during a flight from Hong Kong to Melbourne.

Reuters - The House of Representatives on Thursday failed to pass legislation intended to cool off gasoline prices by requiring the government to sell 70 million barrels of light sweet crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the national stockpile.

Reuters - Hurricane Dolly, which lashed the U.S.-Mexico coastline, weakened to a tropical depression on Thursday over South Texas, but concern remained over flooding along the populous Rio Grande Valley.

Reuters - Britain's ruling Labor Party lost one of its safest parliamentary seats, results showed on Friday, deepening doubts within the party about Prime Minister Gordon Brown's ability to win the next election.