AP - Nine maximum security inmates escaped from a county jail Friday by climbing down a rope made of bed sheets, authorities said.

AP - Two children and an adult died Friday after falling through the ice in two southeastern Wisconsin ponds, officials said.

AP - The bride wore camouflage and combat boots. The groom, 7,000 miles away in Qatar, forgot the ring. But nothing could stop the wedding.

Reuters - A car bomb exploded near a passing U.S. military patrol in Baghdad on Saturday, killing four passersby and wounding four others, Iraq's Interior Ministry said, but the U.S. patrol escaped unharmed.

AP - Canada on Friday pledged $4.3 billion in a landmark deal with Indian and northern Inuit communities to help lift them from the poverty and disease that has plagued their neglected reserves for more than a century.

AP - An Army plan to develop a database of sexual assaults is meeting some resistance from members of Congress and an advocacy group who say it could violate victims' privacy.

AP - The bride wore camouflage and combat boots. The groom, 7,000 miles away in Qatar, forgot the ring. But nothing could stop the wedding.

Reuters - A car bomb exploded near a passing U.S. military patrol in Baghdad on Saturday, killing four passersby and wounding four others, Iraq's Interior Ministry said, but the U.S. patrol escaped unharmed.

AP - A car bomb exploded near a two-car convoy carrying foreigners through central Baghdad on Saturday, killing four Iraqi civilians, police said.

AP - A magnitude 5.7 earthquake shook part of central China on Saturday, killing at least 14 people and injuring nearly 400, the government said.

AP - Richard Lane didn't pickup a new iPod, laptop or plasma screen TV, but he knocked off a chunk of his shopping list with one visit to the Orvis outdoor store.

AP - The deaths of two children and a man who broke through frozen ponds in southeastern Wisconsin have led officials to warn of the dangers of skating or driving on early winter's thin ice.

AP - B.J. Ryan and the Toronto Blue Jays have reached a preliminary agreement on a $47 million, five-year contract, a high-ranking baseball official said Friday.

Reuters - A first busload of Palestinians passed through a newly opened terminal on the Gaza-Egypt frontier on Saturday, as Palestinians gained unprecedented control of their own border.

Reuters - At least 79 people died in two separate overnight bus accidents in the rain-ravaged southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, officials said on Saturday.

AP - A suicide bomber drove his pickup truck into a crowded gas station north of Baghdad on Saturday and killed 12 people while a second car bomb targeting a convoy of foreigners killed four others in the capital, police said.

AP - Joyous Palestinians crossed from Gaza to Egypt through a Palestinian-run border terminal Saturday, the first time in nearly four decades they didn't have to submit to Israeli security checks to leave the fenced-in coastal strip.

Reuters - Iran has offered North Korea oil and natural gas as payment for help in developing nuclear missiles, German weekly magazine Der Spiegel reported on Saturday, citing unidentified Western intelligence sources.

AP - Todd Brabender remembers the December nearly 20 years ago when he and some University of Kansas friends gathered around a Christmas tree hanging upside-down from a water pipe in his apartment. It seemed like such a crazy idea then. But not anymore.

Reuters - Palestinians asserted control for the first time over an international frontier on Saturday as hundreds of Gazans moved across a newly opened terminal at Rafah into neighbouring Egypt.

Reuters - With less than three weeks to go before elections for a new parliament, Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority, once strong under Saddam Hussein, is doing everything it can to make sure it gets its tactics right.

AFP - The Rafah border terminal between the Gaza Strip and Egypt has opened to Palestinians on, allowing access from the tiny territory to the outside world for the first time in almost three months.

AP - Four U.S. soldiers face disciplinary action for burning the bodies of two Taliban rebels, but they will not be charged with crimes because their actions were motivated by hygienic concerns, the military said Saturday.

Reuters - North Korea on Saturday called a recent CNN program depicting a public execution in the communist state a 'sheer fabrication' and dismissed it as a ratings ploy by the U.S.-based broadcaster.

AP - The deaths of two children and a man who broke through frozen ponds in southeastern Wisconsin have led officials to warn of the dangers of skating or driving on early winter's thin ice.

AP - An Indian textile millionaire apparently broke the world record Saturday for the highest flight in a hot air balloon.

AP - Indonesia reported a new human bird flu infection on Saturday, and Taiwan joined other Asian governments in announcing it wanted to produce the anti-viral drug Tamiflu to treat people infected with the virus.

Reuters - An earthquake killed 14 people, injured nearly 400 and destroyed 8,500 homes in Jiangxi province in eastern China on Saturday morning, the official Xinhua agency reported.

AFP - Shrouded by fear after two defence lawyers were slain, the trial of Saddam Hussein resumes on Monday with the former Iraqi dictator and seven former cohorts facing possible execution.

AP - A suicide bomber drove his pickup truck into a crowded gas station in central Iraq on Saturday and detonated it, killing six people, while a car bomb targeting a convoy of foreigners in the capital killed four people, police said.

AP - Three months after the mother of a fallen soldier led a 26-day anti-war vigil near President Bush's ranch, peace activists and Bush supporters converged again Saturday for dueling rallies.

AP - Lawmakers from states untouched by Hurricane Katrina face a conundrum — showing compassion toward the devastated Gulf Coast without breaking the bank and, at the same time, balancing disaster-relief needs in their own regions.

AP - Two endangered cheetah cubs held captive and abused at a remote village restaurant are to be rescued by an Ethiopian veterinarian and U.S. soldiers, an environmental official said.

AFP - More than 110 people were feared dead after two packed passenger buses skidded off bridges in southern India amid heavy rains, police and officials have said.

AFP - Senegal authorities have re-arrested Chadian former dictator Hissene Habre, one of his lawyers said, a day after he was released because a court was unable to rule on a Belgian extradition request.

AFP - Afghan troops foiled a bomb attack in the capital Kabul with the arrest of six suspected militants and their explosives-packed vehicle, the defense ministry said.

AFP - A raft of absences, confirmed or merely feared, and protests mark the build-up to the Euromed summit, which opens officially in Barcelona on Sunday with terrorism and immigration topping a common agenda.

AFP - Snowstorms have lashed Britain, France upped weather alerts after three people froze to death and travellers were stranded in Germany as a bitter cold snap gripped western Europe.

AP - His mother may know best, but conservatives do not share her certainty that Samuel Alito would overturn abortion rights.

AP - A Japanese spacecraft showed signs of trouble Saturday after apparently landing on an asteroid and collecting surface samples in an unprecedented mission to bring the extraterrestrial material back to Earth, officials said.

AP - Jamie Foxx stepped into the spotlight at his latest movie premiere with more than the usual publicity drill in mind.

Reuters - The U.S. military admitted on Saturday that its soldiers in Afghanistan had burned the bodies of two dead Taliban guerrillas and taunted insurgents about it, but had not meant it as a desecration.

Reuters - President George W. Bush, under political pressure to change his Iraq policy, on Saturday thanked the families of troops killed in the war for their sacrifice as peace activists gathered near his Texas home.

Reuters - Police in Azerbaijan's capital used truncheons and water cannon on Saturday to break up a protest by opposition supporters complaining of fraud in an election earlier this month.

Reuters - Persistent insurgent attacks and a torture scandal at a government facility could deter Iraqis from voting in next month's historic parliamentary elections, the U.N. representative in Iraq said on Saturday.

AP - It was a smooth debut Saturday for the first Palestinian-run border. Hundreds of travelers zipped through passport control without having to submit to Israeli security checks, savoring their new freedom after 38 years of military occupation.

AP - Saddam Hussein's trial resumes Monday after a five-week break, with the defense planning to seek a lengthy adjournment in a proceeding threatened by Iraq's ongoing turmoil and tarnished by the assassination of two defense attorneys since the opening session last month.

AP - Visiting Premier Wen Jiabao ordered local leaders to clean up toxic benzene by Sunday night from the river that provides water for this northeast city, where residents spent a fourth day Saturday without supplies in freezing weather.

AP - Wal-Mart Stores Inc.'s deep discounting and expanded hours on Friday, the start of the holiday shopping season, appeared to have paid off.

AP - In a Skins Game first, Fred Funk played a hole worth $75,000 while wearing a pink flowered skirt, his penalty for being outdriven by Annika Sorenstam.

AFP - Egyptian police blocked access to many voting stations on the fourth day of national legislative polls, the Muslim Brotherhood said, with the banned Islamist party expected to make historic gains.

AFP - Police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse thousands of demonstrators protesting against results of parliamentary elections won in a landslide by President Ilham Aliyev's ruling party.

AFP - A raft of top-level absences clouded the build-up to the Euromed summit in Barcelona, bringing together European and Mediterranean rim states for two days of talks centred on terrorism and immigration.

AFP - Voter apathy and a partial opposition boycott marred elections to Zimbabwe's new and controversial senate set to be won by President Robert Mugabe's party.

AFP - African leaders are to deliberate the fate of Chadian former dictator Hissene Habre who was arrested again after a Senegalese court decided it was not competent to rule on his extradition to Belgium.

AP - Jamie Foxx stepped into the spotlight at his latest movie premiere with more than the usual publicity drill in mind.

AP - Nate Robinson's buzzer-beating 3-pointer lifted the New York Knicks to a 105-102 overtime victory over the Philadelphia 76ers on Saturday.

Reuters - The United Nations envoy in Iraq said on Saturday he was worried that persistent attacks by insurgents and a torture scandal in a government bunker could stop people from voting in next month's historic election.

Reuters - President George W. Bush, under political pressure to change his Iraq policy, on Saturday thanked the families of troops killed in the war for their sacrifice as activists rallied near his Texas home.

AP - It was a smooth debut Saturday for the first Palestinian-run border. Hundreds of travelers zipped through passport control without having to submit to Israeli security checks, savoring their new freedom after 38 years of military occupation.

AP - Visiting Premier Wen Jiabao ordered local leaders to restore running water to the 3.8 million people of this northeastern Chinese city, who spent a fourth day Saturday without supplies after a chemical spill in the river that provides their water.

AP - Carrying rosary beads and cameras, the faithful have been coming in a steady stream to a church on the outskirts of Sacramento for a glimpse of what some are calling a miracle: A statue of the Virgin Mary they say has begun crying a substance that looks like blood.

AP - Jamie Foxx stepped into the spotlight at his latest movie premiere with more than the usual publicity drill in mind.

AP - It was a smooth debut Saturday for the first Palestinian-run border. Hundreds of travelers zipped through passport control without having to submit to Israeli security checks, savoring their new freedom after 38 years of military occupation.

AP - Two jail escapees were captured Saturday after an anonymous tip led police to the attic of a relative's home, but two others were still at large after nine inmates broke out of a maximum security area of the Yakima County Jail.

AP - A small, twin-engine plane carrying White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card made an emergency landing in Nashville Saturday after smoke began pouring into the cockpit, officials said.

AP - Two monorail trains clipped each other on a curve in the tracks Saturday evening in the heart of Seattle. No injuries were immediately reported.

AP - Cedric Humes ran for a career-high 134 yards and two touchdowns and No. 5 Virginia Tech advanced to the Atlantic Coast Conference championship game with a 30-3 victory against North Carolina on Saturday night.

AFP - The White House has for the first time claimed ownership of an Iraq withdrawal plan, arguing that a troop pullout blueprint unveiled this past week by a Democratic senator was "remarkably similar" to its own.

AFP - Thousands gathered Saturday for what was supposed to have been a peaceful protest in Azerbaijan's capital, but when the rally turned to terrifying chaos, the only sign of his wife one demonstrator could find were her shoes.

AFP - NATO has agreed to plans extending its ISAF peacekeeping mission into Afghanistan's more volatile south, but concerns remain over who will provide troops amid growing security fears on the ground, officials say.