Reuters - Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick pleaded guilty on Thursday to obstruction of justice in a plea agreement that forces him from office and caps a scandal that had threatened to spill over into the U.S. presidential campaign in a key battleground state.

Reuters - Top U.S. defense officials have recommended that President George W. Bush withdraw one combat brigade from Iraq but not until early next year, Pentagon sources said on Thursday.

Reuters - Five Islamist militants were killed on Friday in a missile attack by a suspected U.S. drone in Pakistan's North Waziristan region, in a stepped up campaign against militants near the Afghan border.

Reuters - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney discusses the Georgia crisis on Friday with Ukrainian leaders, whose country is deeply divided over NATO membership and distracted by a domestic political crisis.

Reuters - A wave of risk aversion hit financial markets on Friday, pushing world stocks to their lowest in more than two years, and knocking European currencies and oil as fears about the slowing global economy intensified.

Reuters - Republican John McCain cast himself as an independent-minded reformer on Thursday, vowed "change is coming" if he is elected president and promised to create millions of jobs by developing new energy sources.

AP - That litany of health issues Novak Djokovic dealt with earlier in the week — hip, ankle, stomach and more — seemed a tad humorous to Andy Roddick.

AP - The New York Giants won the Super Bowl with defense and they kicked off defense of that title with more of the same.

AP - David Spade is the father of Playboy playmate Jillian Grace's newborn daughter, Spade's representative said Thursday. The baby girl was born Aug. 26 in Missouri, and Spade plans to visit her on his first break from filming the CBS sitcom "Rules of Engagement," publicist Meredith O'Sullivan said.

AP - Only hours after agreeing to resign and serve time in jail as part of plea deal, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick expressed regret for the scandal that has engulfed the city — and left the door open for a return to public life.

AP - The real question in Pakistan's presidential election is not who the winner will be but whether the new leader will be any more successful than his predecessor in tackling extremism and economic malaise.

AP - Broken and disgraced, lobbyist Jack Abramoff will spend four years in prison for his role in a corruption scandal that upended Washington politics and contributed to the Republicans' loss of Congress in 2006.

AP - When Condoleezza Rice spends a few hours in Libya and shakes hands with Moammar Gadhafi, she will close a nearly three-decade era of bitter animosity between the United States and the North African nation that has sometimes gotten personal.

AP - Asian stock markets plunged Friday after more bad news on the U.S. economy, a vital export market, triggered a broad sell-off on Wall Street overnight.