AP - Norway's ambassador to the United Nations has accused Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a confidential letter of weak leadership, lack of charisma and angry outbursts, the Oslo newspaper Aftenposten newspaper reported Wednesday.

AP - Publicly, President Barack Obama is still calling for a bipartisan bill to overhaul the nation's health care system. Privately, Democrats are preparing a one-party push, which they feel is all but inevitable.

AP - On just one day this year on the Red Lake reservation in northern Minnesota, police and investigators received emergency calls about one suicide, one murder, three stabbings, two shootings and multiple incidents of domestic violence.

AP - The following recall has been announced:

AP - German police have confiscated hundreds of bronze and plaster statues alleged to be the works of Alberto Giacometti and arrested an art dealer and two others on suspicion of selling the fakes across the globe.

AFP - German leader Angela Merkel and businesswomen dominate Forbes magazine's new list of powerful women, while First Lady Michelle Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn't break the top 30.

Bloomberg - Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- There was Ed Hairston, again. In the front row of the convention hall and angry, he tried to tell Representative Vic Snyder what was wrong with President Barack Obama’s health-care plan.

AP - Vice President Joe Biden plans to announce Thursday nearly $1.2 billion in grants to help hospitals transition to electronic medical records.

Politico - A policy niche is beginning to pay dividends for Tim Pawlenty's prospective 2012 bid: health care.

Politico - Amid White House concerns that it?s losing the message war on both its left and right fronts, President Obama on Thursday will try to rally his grassroots army to regain momentum and redefine the battle for health care reform.

AP - Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney says President Barack Obama is struggling to get a health care bill because he has been too deferential to the liberal wing of his party.

Politico - A policy niche is beginning to pay dividends for Tim Pawlenty's prospective 2012 bid: health care.

AP - Volkswagen of America is recalling 13,500 vehicles to fix problems with a dual-clutch transmission that could lead to a warning on the dashboard.

AP - The Obama administration said Thursday it regrets Scotland's decision to release the Libyan man convicted of the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 that killed 270 people.

AP - Federal regulators said Thursday they hope to resolve by year's end funding shortfalls with owners of 26 nuclear plants not saving enough money to dismantle their reactors if that becomes necessary.

AP - Spaniards honored 154 people who died a year ago Thursday in the crash of a Spanair jetliner in Madrid, praying for them at Mass and laying flowers at a plaque bearing a pledge they will never be forgotten.

AFP - The United States has secured promises from a clutch of European nations to take in detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, bolstering efforts to close the prison, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

AFP - German leader Angela Merkel and businesswomen dominate Forbes magazine's new list of powerful women, while First Lady Michelle Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton didn't break the top 30.

AP - Federal prosecutors unveiled a dozen new indictments Thursday charging accused Mexican drug cartels members pumped vast quantities of drugs into major U.S. cities.

AP - The chief White House spokesman says the spotty turnout in Afghanistan's presidential elections would not alter U.S. policy in the country, where American forces have been battling the militant Taliban for nearly eight years.

AP - The U.S. commander in charge of training Iraqi security forces says the deadly Baghdad bombings obviously represent a lapse in security and that he's personally frustrated with the pace of some training there.

AP - He sports a pot belly, scruffy mustache and ugly glasses, and likes to burp on live TV, yet 18 percent of German voters would be willing to vote for him in next month's national election.

AP - France says a ship carrying an underwater robot has arrived at the Indian Ocean nation of Comoros to retrieve the flight recorders from the Yemenia Airways plane crash.

McClatchy Newspapers - KABUL, Afghanistan — Threats of violence and scattered Taliban attacks appeared to have suppressed voter turnout Thursday in eastern and southern areas of the country during Afghanistan's second presidential election, officials and residents said.

CQPolitics.com - Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, has asked Democratic Massachusetts leaders to change state law so that his successor could be appointed rather than wait five months for a special election.

AP - President Barack Obama said the Libyan convicted in the Pan Am 103 bombing and freed Thursday by Scottish authorities must not receive a hero's welcome in Libya and should be placed under house arrest.

Politico - Administration takes steps to expedite processing of car-dealers’ reimbursement applications.

AP - The CIA hired private contractors from Blackwater USA in 2004 as part of a secret program to kill top-level members of al-Qaida, but a spokesman says it never resulted in the capture or killing of any terrorist suspects.

AP - Mexican drug cartels have spread to 'our own backyards,' Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday as he announced a dozen new indictments aimed at capturing suspected kingpins so they can stand trial in U.S. courts.

AP - Investigators say thousands of lifetime registered sex offenders are living with families who receive federally subsidized housing — a violation of federal law.

AP - A British judge refused to stop the release of a new Stella McCartney perfume Thursday, ruling in a dispute that centers on the new scent's name using the word 'nude.'

Reuters - U.S. President Barack Obama said on Thursday he considered a government-run health insurance plan to be a 'good idea' but insisted it was not the only aspect of healthcare reform under consideration.

Politico - 'Other insurance reforms are just as important as the public option,' he says in a radio interview.

Politico - Administration takes steps to expedite processing of car dealers’ reimbursement applications.

AP - A few thousand lifetime registered sex offenders illegally live in federally subsidized housing, an internal investigation found.

AP - Ever feel that no matter how hard you try, you're walking in circles? A preliminary study by European scientists says that you are.

AP - Reversing global warming will cost up to $185 billion (euro130 billion) a year before 2020 and require more action by world governments than currently pledged, an international environmental analysis group said Thursday.

AFP - President Barack Obama said Thursday that Libya should put cancer-stricken Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset Ali Mohmet al-Megrahi under house arrest and rebuked Scotland for releasing him from jail.

McClatchy Newspapers - WASHINGTON — Relentless attacks on President Barack Obama's health care overhaul

CQPolitics.com - The Federal Election Commission released a draft opinion Thursday that would allow Rep. Peter J. Visclosky to use campaign money to pay any current or former aides' legal expenses stemming from a federal investigation of a defense-related lobbying firm.

Bloomberg - Aug. 20 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she will be unable to pass health-care legislation in her chamber if it doesn’t include a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers.

AP - The White House says it understands some of the frustration automobile dealers are feeling about the government's Cash for Clunkers vehicle trade-in program.

AP - Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge says he was pressured by other members of President George W. Bush's Cabinet to raise the nation's terror alert level just before the 2004 presidential election.

Politico - Obama manages to undo some of the damage he did recently with immigrants’ rights advocates.

AP - The violence-scarred elections in Afghanistan provided a stage for the Taliban to show war-weary Americans and Afghans that it has rebounded and can strike — even after eight years of war.

AP - With hopes growing ever dimmer for a bipartisan accord, White House and Democratic leaders are considering a wide range of strategies for getting a health care bill passed when Congress returns from its summer recess.

McClatchy Newspapers - KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan government and the principal opposition candidate declared the country's second presidential election a success Thursday, despite strong indications that Taliban threats and attacks had kept voters at home in southern and eastern Afghanistan.

Politico - Mitt Romney’s political committee raised only $178,000 — its worst monthly haul of the year.

Politico - Nine months into the year, Obama's health care reform effort is in serious trouble. What went wrong?

AP - The Justice Department is investigating whether Guantanamo Bay detainees charged with roles in the Sept. 11 attacks were improperly given photos of CIA officers or contractors, according to a person familiar with the investigation.

AP - Thousands of technology office employees at the Veterans Affairs Department received a total of $24 million in bonuses over a two-year period, some under questionable circumstances, the agency's inspector general said in scathing reports that also detail abuses ranging from nepotism to an inappropriate relationship.

AP - The chief White House spokesman says the spotty turnout in Afghanistan's presidential elections would not alter U.S. policy in the country, where American forces have been battling the militant Taliban for nearly eight years.

Reuters - U.S. President Barack Obama stood by proposals to create a government-run health insurance program on Thursday while insisting the move was merely one element of a wider plan to reform the industry.