AP - President Barack Obama says he's encouraging Mideast peace talks because the alternative is a status quo that puts Israel, the Palestinians and the U.S. at risk.

AP - President Barack Obama insisted Friday that the U.S. economy is showing improvement from the deepest recession in decades but conceded the "progress has been painfully slow." He said he understands that many voters in November's elections may blame the weak recovery on him.

AP - Fire crews held a wildfire outside of Boulder at bay early Friday, allowing some 2,000 evacuees to briefly return to homes and get important belongings and medicine.

AP - Oil prices surged Friday after a pipeline that delivered oil to Midwest refineries was shut down, raising questions about how long the supply may be disrupted.

AP - Patients jammed rudimentary clinics and health workers in surgical masks sprayed anti-bacterial solution on muddy paths as the government struggled to contain a cholera epidemic that has killed nearly 800 Nigerians in two months.

AP - In the past, the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks was marked by somber reflection and a call to unity, devoid of politics. No more.

AP - Fire crews sprayed water on smoldering homes Friday morning after a massive explosion apparently triggered by a broken gas line sent flames roaring through a neighborhood near San Francisco, killing six people and injuring dozens, officials said.

AP - Clashes between police and alleged militants left six more people dead Friday in Russia's volatile North Caucasus, even as stunned residents laid flowers in a square where a suicide car bombing killed 17 people and wounded more than 140 only a day ago.

AFP - Up to 40,000 frontline police jobs could be axed if suggested government cuts of 25 percent go ahead, the Police Federation warned Friday.

AFP - In far northeastern Badakhshan province, thousands of people gathered outside a small NATO base in the capital Fayzabad, where they threw rocks at the gate and burned an American flag, police said.

AP - An Afghan insurgent commander who was allegedly planning bombings in Kabul on the eve of the Sept. 18 parliamentary elections and two of his associates have been killed in an airstrike, NATO said Friday.

AP - Hundreds of sex abuse victims have come forward in Belgium with harrowing accounts of molestation by Catholic clergy that reportedly led to at least 13 suicides and affected children as young as two, an independent Belgian commission said Friday.

Reuters - Stocks rose on Friday as energy shares were boosted by a jump in crude oil prices and wholesale inventory data pointed to rising consumer demand.

Reuters - Deutsche Bank is set to lead rivals raising billions of euros as new global capital rules to be unveiled this weekend bite, and showed it may be good to get the jump on the pack.

AP - Iran's president intervened to secure the release of Sarah Shourd, one of three Americans jailed for more than 13 months, in part because of her gender, a news agency reported Friday.

AP - Iran's president intervened to secure the release of Sarah Shourd, one of three Americans jailed for more than 13 months, in part because of her gender, a news agency reported Friday.

AP - Authorities in Austin scaled back the search for a missing motorist Friday, a day after a central Texas official said hope was fading that another person swept away by floodwaters from the remnants of Tropical Storm Hermine would be found alive.

Reuters - Nokia has hired Stephen Elop, a Canadian Microsoft executive with Silicon Valley credentials, to replace its embattled chief executive and renew its drive to compete with Apple.

Reuters - Imagine driving across America using a fuel so new you have to carry your own supply wherever you go.

AP - The Greek government pledged Friday to radically overhaul loss-making state rail company OSE, as official data showed efforts to cut the country's bloated budget deficit remained on track, if slightly asthmatic.

Reuters - Wholesale inventories surged by the largest amount in two years in July, a government report said on Friday, in a sign firms were anticipating enough demand to boost stock this summer.

AP - A federal judge said she will issue an order to halt the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, after she declared the ban on openly gay service members unconstitutional.

AP - A federal judge said she will issue an order to halt the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, after she declared the ban on openly gay service members unconstitutional.

AP - Minutes after a woman was suspended from her job at a Kraft Foods Inc. plant and was escorted out, she returned with a handgun and opened fire, killing two people and critically injuring a third before being taken into custody, police said.

AP - As thousands of Afghans protested a tiny Florida church's plan to burn the Muslim holy book, the church's pastor said he won't follow through with the burning if he's able to meet Saturday with the organizers behind a mosque planned near ground zero in New York.

AP - A new mosque recently opened in this well-to-do suburb of Philadelphia, but not many people noticed.