AP - Brad Pitt has wanted to work with the Coen brothers for ages. Then he got wind of the birdbrain they had written for him to play.

AP - Authorities fear that the death toll in the flooded city of Gonaives could rise into the hundreds as U.N. peacekeepers and aid groups rush food and water to tens of thousands left hungry by Tropical Storm Hanna.

AP - Flanked by officials from the NAACP and the Southern Poverty Law Center, FBI Director Robert Mueller last year announced with considerable fanfare a new partnership between his agency and civil rights organizations.

AP - Benazir Bhutto's widower swept Pakistan's presidential election on Saturday, offering hope for stability to a nuclear-armed country feeling intense U.S. pressure to crack down on Islamic militants.

AP - A top House Democrat confirmed Saturday that the government is planning to intervene to stabilize troubled mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

AP - Five days a week, Linda Graham trolls tattered neighborhoods of this once thriving steel city outside Pittsburgh for unregistered voters she can sign up as Democrats — one of thousands of unknown volunteers whose work outside the limelight has already altered the basic arithmetic of the November election.

AP - They embody four uniquely American stories. They offer messages of transformation with two distinct world views. They pursue one goal.

AP - Tropical Storm Hanna accelerated toward New England on Saturday after the storm's whipping winds and rain didn't linger long enough over the Southeast to cause much more than some isolated flooding and power outages.

AFP - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Tunis early Saturday to pursue a North Africa tour after a landmark meeting in Libya with its leader Moamer Kadhafi.

AFP - Pakistan lawmakers started voting Saturday in a presidential election that slain opposition leader Benazir Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari is widely expected to win.

Reuters - Members of Pakistan's parliament and four provincial assemblies voted in a presidential election on Saturday to choose a replacement for Pervez Musharraf, who resigned last month.

Reuters - The United States remains willing to remove North Korea from a list of terror-sponsoring states as soon as the North agrees rules to check its nuclear disclosures, Washington's envoy in disarmament talks said on Saturday.