WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Army general concluded the Marine Corps chain of command in Iraq ignored 'obvious' signs of 'serious misconduct' in the slayings of two dozen civilians in Haditha, Iraq, in 2005, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.

AP - The family of Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho told The Associated Press on Friday that they feel 'hopeless, helpless and lost,' and 'never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence.'

AP - A NASA contract worker took a handgun inside an office building Friday at the Johnson Space Center and fatally shot a hostage before killing himself, police said. A second hostage escaped with minor injuries.

Reuters - A U.S. Army general concluded the Marine Corps chain of command in Iraq ignored "obvious" signs of "serious misconduct" in the slayings of two dozen civilians in Haditha, Iraq, in 2005, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.

GAZA (Reuters) - Palestinian militants blew up parts of the American International School in Gaza on Saturday, causing damage but no injuries, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.

JENIN, West Bank (Reuters) - Israeli troops operating in a village outside the West Bank town of Jenin shot dead a Palestinian policeman, Palestinian security sources said on Saturday.

AP - Some have called him a loner, but Sun-Kyung Cho says her younger brother was quiet and reserved. She grew up with Seung-Hui Cho, but now says she feels as if she no longer knows him. From afar, she learned her brother was the gunman who went on a rampage at Virginia Tech, killing 32 people before committing suicide to cap the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. Now, with her parents, she is 'living a nightmare.'

AP - A truck bomb aimed at electoral commission headquarters ran into obstructions and failed to explode hours before the start of Nigeria's presidential vote, the national police chief said Saturday.

AP - It was a small rally, yet it signaled the start of a much, much larger one. Trailing Miami by five in the bottom of the eighth, the Virginia Tech Hokies scored three quick runs to tighten their baseball game Friday night, injecting life into a crowd desperate for it.

AP - Kristine Lefebvre, who failed to win a job with Donald Trump on 'The Apprentice,' is shedding her business suit for Playboy. Lefebvre will appear on the cover of the June issue of the magazine and is featured in nude photographs inside, her publicist, Howard Bragman, said Friday.

Reuters - Palestinian militants blew up parts of the American International School in Gaza on Saturday, causing damage but no injuries, Palestinian security sources and witnesses said.

Reuters - Israeli troops operating in a village outside the West Bank town of Jenin shot dead a Palestinian policeman, Palestinian security sources said on Saturday.

CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian court convicted an Egyptian-Canadian dual citizen on Saturday of spying for Israel, and sentenced him to 15 years in prison, witnesses said.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Developing countries may account for more than half of all cancer cases in the world by 2020 as their ageing populations increase, medical experts said on Saturday.

AP - NASA officials who examined their security measures following the deadly shooting at Virginia Tech are trying to figure out how a contract worker sneaked a handgun into the Johnson Space Center and killed another employee before shooting himself.

AP - The Pentagon is laying the groundwork to extend the U.S. troop buildup in Iraq. At the same time, the administration is warning Iraqi leaders that the boost in forces could be reversed if political reconciliation is not evident by summer.

AP - The diners didn't know it, but their credit cards were going to pay for more than their meals, prosecutors said. Waiters in about 40 restaurants, in New York and elsewhere, quietly recorded customers' credit card information and passed it on to people who used the information to make more than $3 million worth of worth of illegal purchases, according to prosecutors.

AP - About 150 jobs at the Los Angeles Times are expected to be cut next week amid a recent earnings report from parent Tribune Co. that show slumping revenue, the newspaper reported.

AP - It was reportedly scrawled in red ink on the arm of the Virginia Tech gunman after his shooting rampage that left him and 32 others dead. It was written on an overnight postage Seung-Hui Cho sent between the two shootings. And a variation of it appeared on a file contained in the package sent to NBC that included Cho's rambling, hate-filled video, incoherent written messages and photos.

AP - Boston manager Terry Francona was thinking about going out to talk to reliever Hideki Okajima in the ninth inning before Alex Rodriguez's at-bat. Rodriguez had already homered twice to join Mike Schmidt as the fastest to reach a dozen in baseball history. Masai Takahashi, a member of the training staff who serves as translator, started writing out some things to say before Francona realized it was pointless.

Reuters - An Egyptian court convicted an Egyptian-Canadian dual citizen on Saturday of spying for Israel, and sentenced him to 15 years in prison, witnesses said.

AFP - Nigerian police foiled an attack on the electoral commission headquarters, just hours before Africa's most populous nation holds a landmark presidential election on Saturday.

HAVANA (Reuters) - Convalescing Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who has not appeared in public for almost nine months, met with a high-ranking Chinese Communist Party official for an hour on Friday, Cuban state media said.

CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian court convicted an Egyptian-Canadian dual citizen on Saturday of spying for Israel and sentenced him to 15 years in prison, and three Israelis tried in absentia were also found guilty, witnesses said.

WARSAW (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush is expected to visit Warsaw in June for talks on installing part of a U.S. missile defense system in Poland, Polish daily Rzeczpospolita said on Saturday, quoting a government source.

MISSION CONTROL MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) - Space tourist Charles Simonyi left for Earth on Saturday after a two- week stay at the orbiting International Space Station.

AP - Some have called him a loner, but Sun-Kyung Cho says her younger brother was quiet and reserved. She grew up with Seung-Hui Cho, but now says she feels as if she no longer knows him. From afar, she learned her brother was the gunman who went on a rampage at Virginia Tech, killing 32 people before committing suicide to cap the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history. Now, with her parents, she is 'living a nightmare.'

AP - Australian actor Eric Bana crashed his painstakingly restored 1974 Ford XB Coupe into some trees during an around-the-state rally Saturday but emerged uninjured along with his co-driver.

AP - Rangers at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park are launching a program to stop people from leaving religious offerings at the summit of Mount Kilauea — including food they say attracts rats and cockroaches.

Reuters - Convalescing Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who has not appeared in public for almost nine months, met with a high-ranking Chinese Communist Party official for an hour on Friday, Cuban state media said.

Reuters - An Egyptian court convicted an Egyptian-Canadian dual citizen on Saturday of spying for Israel and sentenced him to 15 years in prison, and three Israelis tried in absentia were also found guilty, witnesses said.

Reuters - U.S. President George W. Bush is expected to visit Warsaw in June for talks on installing part of a U.S. missile defense system in Poland, Polish daily Rzeczpospolita said on Saturday, quoting a government source.

Reuters - Space tourist Charles Simonyi left for Earth on Saturday after a two- week stay at the orbiting International Space Station.

AFP - Polls began opening Saturday amid chaos and tension in Nigeria's landmark presidential elections, due to see the first post-colonial transfer of power between two civilian presidents in Africa's most populous nation.

SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has urged his followers to step up suicide attacks on foreign and Afghan troops and remain united, according to a Taliban commander.

AP - Some have called him a loner, but Sun-Kyung Cho says her younger brother was quiet and reserved. She grew up with Seung-Hui Cho, but now says she feels as if she no longer knows him.

AP - NASA officials who examined their security measures following the deadly shooting at Virginia Tech are trying to figure out how a contract worker sneaked a handgun into the Johnson Space Center and killed another employee before shooting himself.

AP - An American billionaire who paid $25 million for a 13-day trip to outer space returned to Earth on Saturday in a space capsule that also carried a cosmonaut and an American astronaut, making a soft landing on the Kazakh steppe.

AP - A wall U.S. troops are building around a Sunni enclave in Baghdad came under increasing criticism on Saturday, with residents calling it 'collective punishment' and a local leader saying construction began without the neighborhood council's approval.

Reuters - A Russian Soyuz capsule with space tourist and Microsoft guru Charles Simonyi on board landed safely in Kazakhstan on Saturday.

Reuters - The fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar has urged his followers to step up suicide attacks on foreign and Afghan troops and remain united, according to a Taliban commander.

AFP - Voting began Saturday in Nigeria's landmark presidential elections, hours after a failed attempt to blow up the electoral commission marred hopes of a trouble-free poll in the first post-colonial transfer of power between two civilian presidents.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Army general concluded the Marine Corps chain of command in Iraq ignored 'obvious' signs of 'serious misconduct' in the slayings of two dozen civilians in Haditha, Iraq, in 2005, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.

WARSAW (Reuters) - President George W. Bush is expected to visit Warsaw in June for talks on installing part of a U.S. missile defense system in Poland, Polish daily Rzeczpospolita said on Saturday, quoting a government source.

AP - Investigators pressed ahead Saturday with their search for Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho's motives, even as more of his victims' families prepared for memorial services. Authorities sought Cho's cell phone records on the chance he warned someone about what would become the nation's worst mass shooting in modern history.

AP - A former engineer at the nation's largest nuclear power plant has been charged with taking computer access codes and software to Iran and using it to download details of plant control rooms and reactors, authorities said.

AP - An American billionaire who paid $25 million for a 13-day trip to outer space returned to Earth on Saturday in a space capsule that also carried a cosmonaut and an American astronaut, making a soft landing on the Kazakh steppe.

AP - CBS Radio is suing a small radio station for airing reruns of Don Imus' program since his firing for sexist and racist comments about the Rutgers University women's college basketball team.

Reuters - Space tourist Charles Simonyi returned safely to Earth on Saturday, touching down with a Russian-U.S. crew in the steppe of Central Asia after paying for a two-week round trip into space.

Reuters - A U.S. Army general concluded the Marine Corps chain of command in Iraq ignored "obvious" signs of "serious misconduct" in the slayings of two dozen civilians in Haditha, Iraq, in 2005, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.

Reuters - President George W. Bush is expected to visit Warsaw in June for talks on installing part of a U.S. missile defense system in Poland, Polish daily Rzeczpospolita said on Saturday, quoting a government source.

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (Reuters) - Students at Virginia Tech university prepared for funerals on Saturday for nearly a dozen shooting victims and extended a note of forgiveness to the gunman who killed 32 people on campus.

MOGADISHU (Reuters) - Shells pounded Mogadishu on Saturday, killing at least 73 people to swell a death-toll already in the hundreds from this week's battles pitting militias and Islamists against Somali and Ethiopian troops.

AP - The student slouched into his chair, his face wrapped in sunglasses, the brim of his baseball cap pulled down so low his eyes were almost lost. The Virginia Tech professor who took a seat across from him did so because there didn't really seem to be any other option.

AP - Not long ago, Washington lobbyist Wayne Berman and California investor Tom Tellefsen shared the same goal: Raise as much money as possible for George W. Bush. Now they are in opposite presidential camps; Berman with John McCain and Tellefsen with Mitt Romney.

AP - NASA is concentrating on a review of its security procedures as officials try to figure out how a contract worker smuggled a handgun into the Johnson Space Center, where he killed another employee and himself, a spokesman said Saturday.

AP - An American billionaire who paid $25 million for a 13-day trip to outer space returned to Earth on Saturday in a space capsule that also carried a cosmonaut and a U.S. astronaut, making a soft landing on the Kazakh steppe.

AP - Alex Rodriguez walked into the Yankees clubhouse, changed from street clothes into uniform, grabbed a bat and hustled off to the batting cage, never taking off the white earphones playing his music. When he got back to his locker, he quickly moved into the trainer's room, then across the back of the clubhouse to the players' lounge.

Reuters - Shells pounded Mogadishu on Saturday, killing at least 73 people to swell a death-toll already in the hundreds from this week's battles pitting militias and Islamists against Somali and Ethiopian troops.

AFP - Voting started in overseas territories Saturday for France's hotly contested presidential election that heralds the transfer of power to a new generation of political leaders.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A space engineer who killed a co-worker and himself at NASA's Johnson Space Center used a gun bought the same March day as he printed out a negative job report that he blamed on his victim, police said on Saturday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A former engineer at the largest U.S. nuclear power plant was arrested on suspicion of taking software codes and using them to download details of plant control rooms and reactors while in Iran, officials said on Saturday.

AP - Investigators pressed ahead Saturday with their search for Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho's motives, even as more of his victims' families said goodbye to their loved ones.

AP - The chairman of Fallujah's city council, an outspoken critic of al-Qaida who took the job in the former Sunni insurgent stronghold after his three predecessors were assassinated, was killed in a drive-by shooting on Saturday, police said.

AP - The shooter in an apparent murder-suicide at the Johnson Space Center had received a poor job review and feared being fired, police said Saturday.

Reuters - A former engineer at the largest U.S. nuclear power plant was arrested on suspicion of taking software codes and using them to download details of plant control rooms and reactors while in Iran, officials said on Saturday.

AFP - Ballot box chaos, killings and a truck-bomb aimed at Nigeria's electoral commission marred the country's first electoral bid Saturday for a civilian-to-civilian transfer of power since independence.

AFP - Citizens of France's overseas territories began casting their votes Saturday, as the nation braced for round one of its most hard-fought presidential elections in decades.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A jet fighter flown by the U.S. Navy Blue Angels demonstration team crashed on Saturday in South Carolina and a number of houses were on fire, CNN said.

AP - An eBay account that investigators believe may have belonged to the Virginia Tech killer was used to buy ammunition for the type of gun used in the rampage, according to information on the auction site.

AP - Islamic insurgents and Ethiopian soldiers turned the streets of the Somali capital into a battleground for a fourth straight day, firing rockets and mortar rounds at each other on Saturday in what a human rights official said was the worst violence in years.

AP - The shooter in an apparent murder-suicide at the Johnson Space Center had received a poor job review and feared being fired, police said Saturday.

AP - The first hints of trouble came with vague warnings from the outer reaches of the bureaucracy. She was 'pushing too hard.' She was 'alarmist.'

AP - Vince Carter heard boos all afternoon. They couldn't ruin his return to Toronto for the playoffs. 'I didn't come here to worry about the crowd and the response, I came here to win a basketball game,' Carter said. Richard Jefferson and Jason Kidd made sure the Nets did just that.

Reuters - A jet fighter flown by the U.S. Navy Blue Angels demonstration team crashed on Saturday in South Carolina and a number of houses were on fire, CNN said.

Reuters - A space engineer who killed a co-worker and himself at NASA's Johnson Space Center used a gun bought the same March day as he printed out a negative job report that he blamed on his victim, police said on Saturday.

BLACKSBURG, Virginia (Reuters) - Mourners gathered on Saturday for the funerals of many of the 32 victims killed at Virginia Tech as some students extended a note of forgiveness to the gunman responsible for the massacre.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A jet fighter flown by the U.S. Navy Blue Angels demonstration team crashed on Saturday in South Carolina eyewitnesses said.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - A mediocre job review led a space engineer to buy a gun, then kill a co-worker he blamed for the appraisal and himself at NASA's Johnson Space Center, police said on Saturday.

AP - A Navy Blue Angel jet crashed during an air show Saturday, plunging into a neighborhood of small homes and trailers and killing the pilot, the county coroner said.

AP - The Virginia Tech killer went to eBay to buy ammunition clips for one of the types of guns he used in the rampage, a spokesman for the auction site confirmed Saturday.

AP - The Fallujah city council chairman, a critic of al-Qaida who took the job after his three predecessors were assassinated, was killed on Saturday, the latest blow in a violent internal Sunni struggle for control of an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad.

AP - Should they choose Nicolas Sarkozy, blunt, reformist and pro-American — and frightening to many French? Or Segolene Royal, the smiling, feminist mother-figure with a more cautious plan for France? Or will the scholarly farmer's son Francois Bayrou pull a surprise?

AP - An American billionaire who won a junior cosmonaut contest as a child returned Saturday from a dream voyage to the international space station, riding a Russian capsule to a soft landing on the Kazakh steppe

AP - David Ortiz homered, Alex Rodriguez didn't, and Josh Beckett settled down after a rocky start to help the Boston Red Sox earn their second consecutive victory over the Yankees, beating New York 7-5 Saturday.

Reuters - Mourners gathered on Saturday for the funerals of many of the 32 victims killed at Virginia Tech as some students extended a note of forgiveness to the gunman responsible for the massacre.

Reuters - A jet fighter flown by the U.S. Navy Blue Angels demonstration team crashed on Saturday in South Carolina eyewitnesses said.

Reuters - A mediocre job review led a space engineer to buy a gun, then kill a co-worker he blamed for the appraisal and himself at NASA's Johnson Space Center, police said on Saturday.

AFP - France on Sunday holds the first round of a presidential election that is seen as one of the most hard-fought and important for decades.

PARIS (Reuters) - Right-wing leader Nicolas Sarkozy goes into France's presidential election on Sunday with a narrow lead over Socialist Segolene Royal in most opinion polls, but with millions of voters still unsure whom to back.

ALGIERS (Reuters) - Algeria's prime minister renewed on Saturday criticism of a U.S. embassy alert about possible imminent attacks in the capital, Algiers, saying it was unacceptable interference in the country's affairs.

AP - The U.S. Border Patrol's push to expand the number of agents on the lookout for illegal crossings has some current and former agents worried that the pressure will lead to corner cutting and will jeopardize public safety.

AP - South Korea said Sunday it would give 400,000 tons of rice to impoverished North Korea despite the communist government's failure to meet a deadline to shut down its nuclear reactor.

AP - The gunman in an apparent murder-suicide at the Johnson Space Center targeted a NASA worker he feared could get him fired, police said Saturday.

AP - Twenty-three years ago, impersonator Rich Little stepped to the podium at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner after President Reagan told him: 'Now Rich, if you do well, we'll have you back.'

AP - The Red Sox managed to keep Alex Rodriguez from hitting another home run. The Yankees can't say the same about David Ortiz.

Reuters - Right-wing leader Nicolas Sarkozy goes into France's presidential election on Sunday with a narrow lead over Socialist Segolene Royal in most opinion polls, but with millions of voters still unsure whom to back.

Reuters - Algeria's prime minister renewed on Saturday criticism of a U.S. embassy alert about possible imminent attacks in the capital, Algiers, saying it was unacceptable interference in the country's affairs.

AP - President Bush, deferring to the tragedy at Virginia Tech, passed up any attempt to be funny at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner Saturday, leaving those efforts to impersonator Rich Little.

AP - The gunman in an apparent murder-suicide at the Johnson Space Center targeted a NASA worker he feared could get him fired, police said Saturday.

AP - The Detroit Pistons tried the Hack-a-Shaq strategy against Shaquille O'Neal and the Miami Heat last postseason. The Pistons implemented the Hack-a-Howard plan on Saturday night, and it paid off.