AP - A powerful 7.4-magnitude earthquake struck much of New Zealand's South Island early Saturday. No tsunami alert was issued and there were no reports of injuries or serious damage.

AFP - The IMF and the UN labour agency are urging advanced economies not to cut government spending before 2011, warning that a move to tighten fiscal policies could hurt the global recovery.

AP - A suicide bombing claimed by the Pakistani Taliban killed at least 43 Shiite Muslims at a procession in southwest Pakistan on Friday. The assault sharply drove up the toll of sectarian assaults in a country battered by massive flooding.

AFP - The African Union force in Somalia has boosted its size and set up nine new positions in Mogadishu where it is protecting the government from a fierce Islamist insurgency, an official said Friday.

AP - Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt has testified he took a $60 million loan against the value of the land around Dodger Stadium to pay mortgages on his estranged wife's six homes.

AP - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is trying to inject some urgency into Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, warning that the negotiations may be "the last chance for a very long time" for an agreement.

Reuters - U.S. employment fell for a third straight month in August, but the drop was far less than expected and private hiring surprised on the upside, easing pressure on the Federal Reserve to prop up economic growth.

AP - Is the global economy out of the woods? Two years after near-meltdown, with the U.S. looking sluggish, equity markets groggy and Europeans fighting a debt crisis, experts gathered in Italy offered a generally gloomy outlook — especially for the United States and much of the industrialized world.

AP - Mexican soldiers killed at least 30 suspected cartel members in two shootouts near the U.S. border in a region that has become one of biggest battlegrounds in the country's drug war, authorities said Friday.

AP - Investigators on Friday released a scientist detained at Miami International Airport after screeners spotted a metal canister in his luggage that looked like a pipe bomb, prompting an evacuation, a senior law enforcement official said.

AP - A weakening Hurricane Earl swiped past North Carolina on Friday on its way to New England, where officials warned residents that it still packed dangerous winds that could topple trees or damage the area's picturesque gray-shingled cottages.

Reuters - Wall Street was set to close out its best week in six on Friday after recent economic data, including a stronger-than-expected jobs report, showed the U.S. economy may be in better shape than thought.

AP - Seven people were convicted of child sex abuse in Portugal on Friday in a major trial that lasted nearly six years and shocked the country.

AP - A thumbnail-sized clam blamed for clouding the azure bays of Lake Tahoe high in the Sierra Nevada has now turned up in a mountain-ringed Adirondack lake renowned for its limpid, spring-fed waters.

AP - Hezbollah's leader said Friday he will not respond to a U.N.-appointed prosecutor's demand for the group to hand over all information relevant to the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

Reuters - President Barack Obama will outline new measures next week to boost the U.S. economy after August data on Friday showed again that jobs -- the central issue in November elections -- were being created too slowly.

AP - When Ruth Garcia's twins are born in two months, they'll have all the rights of U.S. citizens. They and their six brothers and sisters will be able to vote, apply for federal student loans and even run for president.

Time.com - Nine weeks before the midterm elections, Barack Obama finds himself on the wrong side of the polls. Where did all that adoration go -- and is a Republican sweep next?

AP - Whether or not she emerges as winner following recent elections, Australia's first woman prime minister will have led the nation's oldest political party to one of the lowest points in its 119-year history.

AP - Fidel Castro dusted off his full military uniform for the first time since stepping down as president four years ago, a symbolic act in a communist country where little signals often carry enormous significance.

Reuters - Campbell Soup Co posted lower-than-expected quarterly sales and forecast sales growth for the new fiscal year below its long-term target as the world's largest soup company grapples with a weak economy.

AP - African Union peacekeepers have established nine new bases in Somalia's capital in recent months and will help develop Somali government forces to defeat al-Qaida-linked Islamist insurgents, an AU official said Friday.

AP - Unlike the blast that led to the massive BP spill, the latest oil platform fire in the Gulf of Mexico killed no one and sent no crude gushing into the water.

AP - Pro-government militiamen attacked the home of an Iranian opposition leader with homemade bombs and beat one of his bodyguards unconscious, an opposition website reported, in an apparent attempt to keep him from attending a key rally on Friday.