AP - Ominous clouds overhead, the sort of hard court that troubled him this season underfoot, Roger Federer sensed something Saturday he hadn't in quite a while. He was playing exactly like that guy named Roger Federer.

AP - Barack Obama made his first direct criticism of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin on Saturday, saying she pretends to oppose spending earmarks when she actually has embraced them.

AP - A strengthening Hurricane Ike loomed over this low-lying island chain Saturday as a dangerous Category 4 storm, prompting thousands of people to evacuate while those staying behind hunkered down and hoped for the best.

Reuters - Hurricane Ike charged toward Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico as a ferocious Category 4 storm on Saturday, while Tropical Storm Hanna drenched the U.S. Atlantic coast after barreling ashore in the Carolinas.

AP - Massive boulders crashed down on a shantytown on the outskirts of Cairo Saturday, killing at least 24 people and burying many more under tons of rubble, Egyptian authorities said.

AP - Designers at New York Fashion week heard London calling — from 1975.

AFP - The presidents of Armenia and Turkey pledged Saturday to overcome decades of enmity between their two nations during the first visit to Yerevan by a Turkish head of state.

AP - Now is not the right time for the U.S. to move forward on a once-celebrated deal for civilian nuclear cooperation with Russia, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday.

AP - The banners, buttons and signs say McCain-Palin, but the crowds say something else.

AP - The historic takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which could come as soon as this weekend, moved to the forefront of the presidential campaign Saturday as candidates and congressional leaders seized on the enormous implications for taxpayers and the economy.

Reuters - Thirty-one people were killed and 23 injured when a massive rockslide hit a crowded Cairo shanty town on Saturday, sending rocks and boulders crashing down on dozens of houses, security and medical sources said.

AP - Flanked by officials from the NAACP and the Southern Poverty Law Center, FBI Director Robert Mueller last year announced with considerable fanfare a new partnership between his agency and civil rights organizations.

AP - Five days a week, Linda Graham trolls tattered neighborhoods of this once thriving steel city outside Pittsburgh for unregistered voters she can sign up as Democrats — one of thousands of unknown volunteers whose work outside the limelight has already altered the basic arithmetic of the November election.

Reuters - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev accused the United States on Saturday of provoking Moscow by using warships to deliver relief aid to its ally Georgia, with which Russia fought a brief war last month.

Reuters - The boards of mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were set to meet on Saturday to discuss a government plan to place the companies under federal control, sources said.

AFP - Asif Ali Zardari secured a large win in Pakistan's presidential elections on Saturday, capping a remarkable rise from jail, exile and his wife Benazir Bhutto's assassination just nine months ago.

Reuters - Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama warned the elderly on Saturday that Republican rival John McCain would put their retirement income in danger.

Reuters - Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, swept to victory in a presidential election on Saturday.

Reuters - Beijing opened the Paralympic Games in spectacular fashion on Saturday, an event China's leaders hope will show them in a compassionate light.