AP - Dr. Michael DeBakey, the world-famous cardiovascular surgeon who pioneered such now-common procedures as bypass surgery and invented a host of devices to help heart patients, has died. He was 99.

AP - As hundreds of blazes continue to char California, additional National Guard troops and overseas crews are being called in to assist exhausted firefighters, and President Bush has scheduled a visit to the state.

AP - Two airborne planes — one landing and the other taking off — came within a half-mile of colliding at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Friday in the second such incident at the airport in a week, the Federal Aviation Administration said.

AP - Bermuda has issued a tropical storm watch for the island as Hurricane Bertha approaches.

AP - It seems even 22 miles of open ocean might not be keeping gangs off Catalina Island, a mist-shrouded outpost of Los Angeles County best known for its Hollywood history and crystal-clear harbors.

AP - Former faculty at Antioch College, which is temporarily closing amid financial problems, plan to teach in coffee shops, bookstores and parks to keep alive the spirit of the private school known for its pioneering academic programs.

AP - Dozens of Mexicans — including police officers, businessmen, at least one prosecutor and a journalist — are asking for political asylum in the U.S. in a desperate and probably hopeless bid to escape an unprecedented wave of drug-related killings and kidnappings south of the border.

AP - The launch of Apple Inc.'s much-anticipated new iPhone turned into an information-technology meltdown on Friday, as customers were unable to get their phones working.

AP - For more than a year, Gordon Dibler held out hope that his stepson, Army Pvt. Byron W. Fouty, would return home from Iraq. Then military officials delivered the grim news that the bodies of Fouty and another soldier captured in an ambush south of Baghdad had been found.

AP - Firefighters battling a raging wildfire in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California caught a break early Friday when strong winds they expected did not immediately materialize. Residents in Washington state's Spokane Valley fled a fire that destroyed seven houses.