AP - A leading human rights organization says President Bush should not have met at the White House with a Russian military official the group alleges was responsible for serious rights abuses in the breakaway Chechnya province.

Reuters - When Russia's ambassador to the United Nations cautioned this month against "preaching the inevitability" of independence for Kosovo, it barely registered in the breakaway Serbian province.

Reuters - Sudan, accused of hindering aid in war-ravaged Darfur, signed an agreement with the United Nations on Wednesday pledging to give humanitarian groups better access to the region.

AP - Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani gained the endorsement Wednesday of a former GOP candidate — billionaire publisher and flat-tax proponent Steve Forbes.

AP - Excerpts from the prepared testimony of Kyle Sampson, the former chief of staff to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, on the firing of eight U.S. attorneys. He appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday:

AP - A budget plan promising spending increases for education, health care and national security neared House passage Thursday as Democrats pressed their first budget plan since regaining control of Congress.

Reuters - Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives expressed "deep concern" about the direction of free trade talks with South Korea in a letter to the Bush administration released on Thursday as U.S. negotiators were in Seoul trying to wrap up a deal.

AFP - A European Commission official and two others have been charged in a corruption probe into EU tenders, Belgian prosecutors said Wednesday following police raids in four countries.

AP - The House Thursday narrowly passed a $2.9 trillion Democratic budget blueprint predicting a big surplus in five years but relying on the expiration of tax cuts to do so.

AP - President Bush saluted the Tuskegee airmen on Thursday, six decades after they completed their World War II mission and returned home to a country that discriminated against them because they were black.

AP - Talk about getting your lines crossed.

AFP - A Senate panel on Wednesday approved Washington's outgoing ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, to be the new US envoy to the United Nations.

AP - House Democrats pushed their budget blueprint to passage Thursday, promising a big surplus in five years by allowing tax cuts passed in President Bush's first term to expire.

AP - The two largest buyers of home mortgages, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, would be brought under tighter government oversight in a bill that won approval Thursday from a House committee.

AP - Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney on Thursday dropped some names of potential running mates in the 2008 race, but added such speculation is a bit premature.

AP - It was just the kind of spectacle the White House is hoping to spare Karl Rove: a top administration official in a hearing room, right hand raised amid a glare of camera flashes, swearing to tell the truth and bracing for tough questions from outraged lawmakers.

AP - A government official broke federal rules and should face punishment for leaking information about endangered species to private groups, the Interior Department's watchdog said.

Reuters - U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez will urge Russia and Ukraine to step up efforts to join the World Trade Organization when he visits there next week, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday.

AP - Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson said Thursday he's backing Democrat Barack Obama in his presidential bid, giving his support to a new generation of black politicians. 'He has my vote,' the Rev. Jackson told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

AP - Republican presidential candidate Sam Brownback said Social Security can be fixed with private savings accounts, a case President Bush has made without success during his second term in office.

AP - A White House plan devised in weeks of closed-door meetings with Republican senators would grant work visas to undocumented immigrants but require them to return home and pay hefty fines to become legal U.S. residents.

AP - The federal government must allow meatpackers to test their animals for mad cow disease, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

AP - U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon tried to persuade Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to accept U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur on Wednesday, hours after al-Bashir flatly rejected the deployment.