AP - Barack Obama laid into John McCain on Friday for advancing a tough-guy foreign policy that he called "naive and irresponsible," serving notice that he's ready to launch a full-throttle challenge to the Republican presidential contender on international relations in the general election campaign.

AP - President Bush failed to win the help he sought from Saudi Arabia to relieve skyrocketing American gas prices Friday, a setback for the former Texas oilman who took office predicting he would jawbone oil-producing nations to help the U.S.

AP - A powerful aftershock knocked out roads and communications in some of the most quake-ravaged parts of central China on Friday, as emergency crews rescued 163 people who had survived up to 100 improbable hours trapped in the ruins.

AP - The U.S. is its own worst enemy when it comes to the desperately important task of recruiting immigrants as spies, analysts and translators in the war on terror, new Americans are telling intelligence officials. The government's policies raise suspicions and fear in the immigrants' home countries and disturb potential recruits here who might otherwise want to help.

AP - Back in the day of chain gangs, Alabama passed a law that gave sheriffs $1.75 a day to feed each prisoner in their jails, and the sheriffs got to pocket anything that was left over. More than 80 years later, most Alabama counties still operate under this system, with the same $1.75-a-day allowance, and some sheriffs are actually making money on top of their salaries.

AP - Michigan and Florida alone can't save Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign.

AP - For thoroughbreds in this U.S. Caribbean territory, being fast enough to win, place or show is a matter of life and death — losers often don't even make it off the racetrack grounds alive. More than 400 horses, many in perfect health, are killed each year by injection at a clinic behind the Hipodromo Camarero racetrack, said chief veterinarian Jose Garcia.

AP - Though Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz are keeping a tight lid on their nuptuals, it's looking like a wedding is imminent. Aerial photos posted Friday at several celebrity Web sites, credited to the Insight News & Features paparazzi photo agency, purport to show the Simpson family home near Los Angeles dotted with large white party tents.

AP - Robert Mondavi, the vintner who built his career and helped an iconic Northern California industry blossom by insisting that Napa Valley wines can compete with the best in the world, died in the valley Friday. He was 94.

AP - The Cleveland Cavaliers packed for a weekend stay in Beantown — not a few weeks on Cape Cod.

Reuters - Chinese President Hu Jintao urged rescuers in the southwestern province of Sichuan to race to save lives, days after the most destructive earthquake to hit modern China, state media said on Saturday.

Reuters - President George W. Bush flies to Egypt on Saturday for talks with Palestinian leaders who will be looking for signs they will not be neglected after he lavished praise on Israel during a visit to the Jewish state.

Reuters - Democratic presidential front-runner Barack Obama said on Friday President George W. Bush's "failed policies" had strengthened U.S. enemies like Iran and Hamas.

Reuters - Osama bin Laden vowed in an audio tape to mark Israel's 60th anniversary to continue to fight the Jewish state and its allies in the West.

Reuters - Charges against five Guantanamo prisoners accused of plotting the September 11 attacks should be thrown out because they were improperly influenced by a Pentagon legal adviser, U.S. military lawyers said in documents filed on Friday.

Reuters - Republican presidential candidate John McCain warned gun owners on Friday that his Democratic opponents Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton would threaten their right to bear arms, as he sought to rally conservatives' support in the November election.

Reuters - Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai restarts his campaign to oust Robert Mugabe at home on Saturday after seeking support abroad in his risky standoff with the president.

AFP - Myanmar has said that more than 133,000 people were dead or missing in the cyclone disaster, nearly doubling the official toll two weeks after the storm left the country's rice-growing south in ruins.

AFP - Cries for help echoed from under the rubble of shattered communities Friday as China warned time was running out to save survivors of an earthquake that has claimed an estimated 50,000 lives.

AP - Back in the day of chain gangs, Alabama passed a law that gave sheriffs $1.75 a day to feed each prisoner in their jails, and the sheriffs got to pocket anything that was left over. More than 80 years later, most Alabama counties still operate under this system, with the same $1.75-a-day allowance, and some sheriffs are actually making money on top of their salaries.

AP - Robert Mondavi, the vintner who built his career and helped an iconic Northern California industry blossom by insisting that Napa Valley wines can compete with the best in the world, died in the valley Friday. He was 94.

AP - When Texas child welfare authorities released statistics showing nearly 60 percent of the teen girls taken from a polygamist sect's ranch were pregnant or had children, they seemed to prove what was alleged all along: The sect commonly pushed girls into marriage and sex.

AP - Federal law gives MySpace.com immunity from a lawsuit over the alleged sexual assault of a teenage girl by a man she met on the social networking Web site, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

AP - For thoroughbreds in this U.S. Caribbean territory, being fast enough to win, place or show is a matter of life and death — losers often don't even make it off the racetrack grounds alive. More than 400 horses, many in perfect health, are killed each year by injection at a clinic behind the Hipodromo Camarero racetrack, said chief veterinarian Jose Garcia.

AP - A man who wrote hundreds of hateful letters to black and mixed race men seen with white women apparently was motivated by a girlfriend who left him for a black man, the FBI said Friday.

AP - The California Supreme Court ruling legalizing gay marriage will not be the last word.

AP - Danielle Brown stands outside a South Side market at midnight, braving the spring chill for her first chance to buy groceries since her food stamps ran out nearly two weeks ago.

AP - The shortage of workers at Ted Blair's three hotels near Yellowstone National Park is so severe that Blair himself might soon be busing tables and stripping beds.

AP - Olympic gold medalist Tim Montgomery's once-celebrated life continued its long downward spiral Friday when a federal judge sentenced the former "world's fastest man" to nearly four years in prison for dealing in bad checks.

AP - In a cramped control room, a bright yellow sticker cautions workers about critical radiation alarms. Now a novelty stuck on a wall between dials that haven't spun in decades, the sign hints at the enormity of the plant's mission.

AP - The nine-week trial of Hollywood private investigator Anthony Pellicano often had seamy plot lines and suspense worthy of a movie: death threats, offers of murder and extramarital affairs.

AP - A Missouri woman was indicted Thursday for her alleged role in perpetrating a hoax on the online social network MySpace against a 13-year-old neighbor who committed suicide.

AP - Nineteen-year-old John Tyler Hammons has a lot on his plate as he prepares to take over as mayor of this eastern Oklahoma city, but he's trying to keep his priorities straight.