AP - Osama bin Laden's former driver is expected to ask the Pentagon jury that convicted him of a war crime to spare him from life in prison Thursday, his defense lawyers said.

AP - Israel is building up its strike capabilities amid growing anxiety over Iran's nuclear ambitions and appears confident that a military attack would cripple Tehran's atomic program, even if it can't destroy it.

AP - As many as eight firefighters and a pilot are presumed dead in the crash of a helicopter that had just picked up workers battling a blaze in a Northern California forest, officials said Wednesday.

AP - At least two women who have protested being evicted from their homes ahead of the Olympics were rounded up and taken to a police station, amid ramped up efforts Thursday by activists to use the games to spotlight their causes.

AP - The investigation spanned six continents, but in the end, federal investigators say they found the anthrax killer in their own back yard.

AP - President Bush praised the spread of freedom in Asia while training a harsh spotlight Thursday on the region's democratic laggards, sharply criticizing oppression and human rights abuses in China, Myanmar and North Korea.

AFP - Military jurors found Osama bin Laden's former driver Salim Hamdan not guilty Wednesday on terrorist conspiracy charges but convicted him on the lesser charge of providing material support to Al-Qaeda.

AFP - Flag-waving crowds cheered the torch relay through Beijing's Tiananmen Square Wednesday as Olympic fever mounted, but a dramatic Tibet protest and a row over Darfur clouded the Games build-up.

Reuters - U.S. President George W. Bush plans to voice deep concerns about human rights in China in a speech on Thursday, hours before he arrives in Beijing for the opening of the Olympic Games.

Reuters - U.S. President George W. Bush issued one of his strongest rebukes to China on human rights on Wednesday, two days before Beijing hosts an Olympics it hopes will showcase its modern face and economic might.

Reuters - There seems little chance that all Canadian Anglican clergy will honor the moratorium on blessing same-sex unions requested by the worldwide Anglican communion.

Reuters - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama took aim at Republican John McCain's maverick image on Wednesday as the campaign trail took another negative turn.

Reuters - Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic demanded on Wednesday that former U.S. peace mediator Richard Holbrooke and ex-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright appear at the U.N. war crimes tribunal to back his claims of an immunity offer from the United States.

Reuters - The FBI began to unveil on Wednesday its case against a U.S. Army scientist it considers responsible for the 2001 anthrax mailings that killed five people and sickened 17 in the worst biological weapon attack in the United States.

Reuters - The United States and Britain said major powers had agreed on Wednesday to consider more U.N. sanctions against Iran after Tehran gave no concrete reply to their demand that it freeze its nuclear activities.