AP - The public-service TV ads deliver a cheerful, yet pointed, message to Muslims observing Ramadan's traditional dawn to dusk fast: "Don't overeat" when night comes. "Exercise and stay healthy."

AP - Two top al-Qaida operatives were among four foreign militants killed in a suspected U.S. missile strike in Pakistan's volatile northwest, Pakistani intelligence officials said Wednesday.

AP - Hurricane Ike barreled across the warm, energizing waters of the Gulf of Mexico Wednesday on its way toward the Texas coast after crashing through Cuba's tobacco country and toppling aging Havana buildings.

AP - The world's biggest physics experiment has succeeded in its first major test as a beam of protons was successfully fired all the way around a 17-mile tunnel beneath the Swiss-French border.

AP - North Korea denied Wednesday that leader Kim Jong Il is seriously ill, granting a Japanese news outlet a rare chance to interview top officials who dismissed widespread reports questioning Kim's health.

Reuters - North Korean leader Kim Jong-il failed to appear at a triumphal military parade on Tuesday celebrating his state's 60th birthday, and a U.S. intelligence official said he may have suffered a stroke.

AFP - Angola's former rebel movement and main opposition party UNITA was Tuesday facing up to a crushing electoral defeat in a landmark peacetime poll for the oil-rich African nation.

AP - A performer with the famed Alvin Ailey dance troupe on Tuesday said he was twice forced to perform steps for Israeli airport security officers to prove his identity before he was permitted to enter the country.

AP - American worries about a suspected plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners in 2006 led to premature arrests and a weaker case at trial, British investigators said Tuesday, a day after a London jury failed to convict eight men of pursuing the alleged plan.

AP - Russia announced Tuesday it would keep 7,600 troops in Abkhazia and South Ossetia for the foreseeable future, asserting power in the breakaway regions even as it began a pullout from positions deeper in Georgia.

AP - Repeatedly paying homage to his assassinated wife, new President Asif Ali Zardari declared Tuesday that he has a comprehensive plan to fight terrorism and said Pakistan's people are behind him.

AP - Hurricane Ike roared across Cuba west of the densely populated capital's aging buildings Tuesday after tearing down the length of the island nation, ravaging homes, killing at least four people and forcing 1.2 million to evacuate.

AP - Thailand's prime minister was forced out of office Tuesday after a court ruled that he had broken a conflict-of-interest law by hosting TV cooking shows.