AP - American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings Inc. boosted its wage offer and increased the payments it will give workers to take a wage cut as part of a tentative agreement that could settle an 11-week strike by the United Auto Workers union, a person briefed on the deal said Saturday.

AP - A man with a semiautomatic rifle opened fire at a church festival Saturday, wounding his ex-wife and two bystanders before festival-goers grabbed him and held him for police, authorities and a church official said.

AP - President Bush said Saudi Arabia's small increase in oil production will not solve soaring U.S. fuel prices, but he defended the wealthy kingdom Saturday against American lawmakers "screaming the loudest" for Riyadh to open its spigots.

AP - Nearly 1,000 people have been detained in a sweep to break al-Qaida in Iraq's sway in Iraq's third largest city, Mosul, but many of the fighters have fled to nearby areas, where troops are hunting for them, Iraqi officials said Saturday.

AFP - World frustration with Myanmar boiled over on Saturday, with accusations of negligence and crimes against humanity over the regime's slow-moving response to the cyclone disaster.

Reuters - U.S. President George W. Bush, responding to Arab dismay about his praise for Israel, said on Saturday he was confident a deal on Palestinian statehood could be reached before he leaves office.

Reuters - Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai postponed his return home on Saturday to contest an election run-off after his party said it had discovered an assassination plot against him.

Reuters - Iraqi forces have detained more than 1,000 suspects in an offensive aimed at crushing al Qaeda in northern Iraq, the military commander of the operation said on Saturday.

Reuters - Diplomats witnessed "huge" devastation in the Irrawaddy delta on Saturday and the toll of dead and missing from the cyclone rose above 133,000 people, making it one of the most damaging to hit Asia.

Reuters - U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a key Democrat critic of President George Bush's war policy in Iraq, landed in Baghdad on Saturday for talks with U.S. and Iraqi officials, the U.S. embassy said.

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.

AP - Robert Mondavi, the pioneering vintner who helped put California wine country on the map, died at his Napa Valley home Friday. He was 94. Mondavi died peacefully at his home in Yountville, Robert Mondavi Winery spokeswoman Mia Malm said.

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.

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.

AP - Courting his sometime critics within the gun lobby, John McCain told the National Rifle Association on Friday that Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton would both undermine the rights of gun owners.

Reuters - Saudi Arabia announced a modest increase in oil output on Friday after an appeal from visiting President George W. Bush but the news did little to douse prices that hit a new record earlier in the day.

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 more than 30 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 - 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 - 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 - Daytime's "The View" will rerun one of its shows in two weeks from an entirely different view that lets fans know a little about what goes on backstage.

AP - Alfonso Soriano got booed and jeered during a slow start. Now, he's showing again that he can carry a team.

AFP - Myanmar said Friday 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.

Reuters - An aftershock brought new havoc to the earthquake-stricken region of China on Friday, as it struggled to bury some of its estimated 50,000 dead, dig out more survivors and help thousands of injured and homeless.

Reuters - Russia's Foreign Ministry said on Friday it hoped the six nations negotiating with Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program could meet in Tehran soon to offer the Islamic Republic new proposals for talks.

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 - A pending new message from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has been announced on Islamist message boards and addresses the 60th anniversary of the state of Israel, an Internet terrorism monitor said on Thursday.

Reuters - The California Supreme Court overturned a ban on same-sex marriages on Thursday in a major victory for gay rights advocates that will allow homosexual couples to marry in the most populous U.S. state.

AFP - China said Thursday that over 50,000 people had likely died in the devastating earthquake that hit its southwest as time runs out to save survivors buried in the rubble of broken communities.

Reuters - President George W. Bush heads for Saudi Arabia on Friday to renew his appeal to help tame record oil prices and try to shore up Arab support for containing Iran's growing regional clout.

AP - Barack Obama accused President Bush of "a false political attack" Thursday after Bush warned in Israel against appeasing terrorists — early salvos in a general election campaign that's already blazing even as the Democratic front-runner tries to sew up his party's nomination.

AP - Charles Barkley acknowledged he owes a $400,000 gambling debt to a Las Vegas Strip casino and promised Thursday to repay it after a prosecutor said the retired NBA star faced criminal charges. "My mistake," Barkley said in an interview at a pro-am golf tournament in Hoover, Ala. "I'm not broke, and I'm going to take care of it."

AP - Troops dug burial pits in this quake-shattered town and black smoke poured from crematorium chimneys elsewhere in central China as priorities began shifting Thursday from the hunt for survivors to dealing with the dead. Officials said the final toll could more than double to 50,000.

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 - California's Supreme Court declared gay couples in the nation's biggest state can marry — a monumental but perhaps short-lived victory for the gay rights movement Thursday that was greeted with tears, hugs, kisses and at least one instant proposal of matrimony.

AP - Republican John McCain declared for the first time Thursday he believes the Iraq war can be won by 2013, although he rejected suggestions that his talk of a timetable put him on the same side as Democrats clamoring for full-scale troop withdrawals.

AP - U.S. and Iraqi troops moved against al-Qaida on two separate fronts Thursday, with house-to-house searches in Mosul and an operation in the desert to stanch the flow of insurgents and weapons to that northern city.

Reuters - Democrats erupted in outrage on Thursday after President George W. Bush suggested a pledge by the party's presidential front-runner Barack Obama to meet Iran's leader was akin to appeasement of Nazi Germany.

Reuters - The death toll from China's earthquake could soar to more than 50,000, state media reported on Thursday, as rescuers struggled to help survivors and hope faded for thousands buried under rubble.

Reuters - Leaders of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee have reached a deal on a broad housing rescue plan in which Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would provide funds to support a federal mortgage insurance fund, two industry sources said on Thursday.

Reuters - The House of Representatives, in a surprise and largely symbolic move, defeated legislation on Thursday to fund the war in Iraq for another year.

AP - The actor who helped glamorize archaeology on the big screen is lending his star power to the Archaeological Institute of America.

Reuters - Republican presidential candidate John McCain said on Thursday he believes the Iraq war can be won by 2013, leaving a functioning democracy there and allowing most U.S. troops to come home.