AP - Police cordoned off schools destroyed in China's devastating earthquake one month ago Thursday, apparently on alert for protests by parents demanding investigations into whether shoddy construction played a role in their children's deaths.

AP - President Bush can look forward to a hearty welcome from his old friend, the charismatic Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, and Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to Rome. That's not what he should expect in the streets, however, where anti-Bush sentiment over the war in Iraq still lingers.

AP - The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan released footage Thursday of a skirmish with militants that Pakistan claims resulted in an airstrike on one of its border posts that killed 11 of its troops.

AP - Taiwan and China agreed Thursday for the first time ever to set up permanent offices in each others' territories as the two sides met for their first formal talks in more than a decade, an official with one of the delegations said.

AFP - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Wednesday denied snubbing the Dalai Lama, who is in Australia on the second leg of a five-nation tour which has brought protests from Beijing.

AP - Afghan counternarcotics officials said Wednesday that they uncovered 260 tons of hashish hidden in 6-foot-deep trenches in southern Afghanistan in what one DEA official said appears to be the world's biggest drug bust.

AP - Israeli leaders decided Wednesday against mounting a major attack on militants in the Gaza Strip, saying they would give Egypt more time to broker a truce with the territory's Hamas rulers.

Reuters - Cristiano Ronaldo, tipped by many to become Euro 2008's player of the tournament, scored one goal and made another to give Portugal a 3-1 win over Czech Republic in Group A on Wednesday.

AP - Evacuees hauled mattresses and carts down from temporary camps in the hills Wednesday after Chinese authorities declared that an earthquake-formed lake drained the day before was no longer a flood threat.

AP - Investigators examined the scorched hull of a jetliner Wednesday to determine what caused the plane to veer off a runway and burst into flames, killing at least 30 people, officials said.

AP - The sun is low in the mountains as Wang Wenying fries up potatoes, beans and chunks of braised duck over an outdoor wood fire.

AP - U.S.-led forces killed Pakistani troops in an airstrike along the volatile Afghan border that Pakistan's army condemned on Wednesday as "completely unprovoked and cowardly."