AP - A small blip on a computer screen sent champagne corks popping among physicists in Switzerland. Near Chicago, researchers at a "pajama party" who watched via satellite let out an early morning cheer.

AP - North Korea's Kim Jong Il had brain surgery after a stroke last month and could have partial paralysis, media reported Thursday, after the South Korean government said he remained in control of his country.

AP - A confidant of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says the Israeli leader will step down "immediately" after his party chooses a successor this month.

AP - The day after Hurricane Gustav roared through western Cuba, families were salvaging belongings from their flattened homes when state-television cameras turned up.

AP - Pakistan's military chief has criticized U.S. cross-border raids from Afghanistan, saying his country's sovereignty will be defended and warning that the assaults could stoke militancy.

AP - Pakistan's military chief says his country's sovereignty will be defended "at all costs" after a raid by U.S. ground troops near the border with Afghanistan.

AP - Two Russian strategic bombers landed in Venezuela on Wednesday as part of military maneuvers, the government said, announcing an unprecendented deployment to the territory of a new ally at a time of increasingly tense relations with the U.S.

AFP - Poland, which joined the European Union in 2004, wants to adopt the eurozone single currency by 2011, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Wednesday, setting a target entry date for the first time.

AP - British prosecutors said Wednesday they were seeking a retrial of seven men accused of plotting to down trans-Atlantic airliners using liquid explosives disguised as soft drinks.

AP - At the palace of Versailles, a marble statue of Louis XIV now shares space with some unlikely interlopers: Michael Jackson and his pet chimp Bubbles, sculpted in porcelain.

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

AP - North Korea's Kim Jong Il is on the road to recovery from a stroke and still in control of his isolated country's communist regime, South Korea suggested Wednesday, disputing reports that the leader is gravely ill.