AFP/DDP - US presidential hopeful Barack Obama was due in Paris on Friday a day after telling a vast crowd of 200,000 people in Berlin that Americans and Europeans must tear down walls between estranged allies, races and faiths, in a soaring challenge to a new political generation.

AP - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Pakistan needs to do more to prevent Taliban militants from launching attacks into Afghanistan from its territory.

AP - Peyton Manning's voice resonated through the Colts training camp Thursday — from 90 miles away. The NFL's two-time MVP spent reporting day at home in Indianapolis, his valuable left knee immobilized after having surgery to remove an infected bursa sac.

AP - If you haven't heard of "Twilight," ask a teenager. The best-selling young-adult book isn't bound for the big screen until December, but fan frenzy for the film practically took over Comic-Con on Thursday.

AP - Scientists have exposed some of the mystery behind the northern lights. On Thursday, NASA released findings that indicate magnetic explosions about one-third of the way to the moon cause the northern lights, or aurora borealis, to burst in spectacular shapes and colors, and dance across the sky.

AP - The grandmother of a missing 2-year-old Orlando girl told an emergency dispatcher that a car driven by the girl's mother smelled like there had been a dead body inside, according to recordings of 911 calls released Thursday.

AP - The Justice Department in 2002 told the CIA that its interrogators would be safe from prosecution for violations of anti-torture laws if they believed "in good faith" that harsh techniques used to break prisoners' will would not cause "prolonged mental harm."

AP - The Secret Service has asked for an extra $9.5 million to cover unexpected costs of protecting the presidential candidates during what has turned into an historic year for the agency's campaign security job.

AP - Three ballistic missile crew members in North Dakota fell asleep while holding classified launch code devices this month, triggering an investigation by military and National Security Agency experts, the Air Force said Thursday.

AP - Cheered by an enormous international crowd, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama on Thursday summoned Europeans and Americans together to "defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it" as surely as they conquered communism a generation ago.

AP - A former student shot three people Thursday in a computer room at a Phoenix community college, injuring one of them critically, authorities said. The gunman fled but a suspect was arrested nearby.

AFP - British Prime Minister Gordon Brown suffered a major blow Friday after his ruling Labour Party lost a crucial by-election in his native Scotland.

Reuters - Britain's ruling Labour Party lost a parliamentary seat in one of its traditional strongholds, a stinging electoral setback for Prime Minister Gordon Brown, results showed on Friday.

Reuters - The Senate was on course for a Saturday vote to approve a major housing market rescue bill with a lifeline for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and bond market action on Thursday indicated investors in the two mortgage finance giants were encouraged.

Reuters - Personal data collected on military, civilian and contractor employees seeking federal security clearances between 1997 and 2005 could be at risk due to inaccurate record-keeping by the Pentagon agency that did the investigations, an audit showed on Thursday.

Reuters - A driver for Osama bin Laden was not told of any rights against self-incrimination under years of interrogation, FBI agents told the Guantanamo war crimes court on Thursday.

Reuters - Hurricane Dolly, which lashed the U.S.-Mexico coastline, weakened to a tropical depression on Thursday over South Texas, but concern remained over flooding along the populous Rio Grande Valley.

Reuters - The House of Representatives on Thursday failed to pass legislation intended to cool off gasoline prices by requiring the government to sell 70 million barrels of light sweet crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the national stockpile.

Reuters - An accounting change that could force banks to bring trillions of dollars of off-balance sheet transactions back on their books will be implemented in a way that will not create unnecessary shocks, the chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday.

Reuters - U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama urged Europe to stand by the United States in stabilizing Afghanistan in a speech to over 200,000 in Berlin that stressed the need for unity in the face of new threats.