AP - Hurricane Earl roared past the North Carolina Outer Banks early Friday, flooding some parts of the narrow vacation islands and knocking out electricity before driving north at the start of at least 24 hours of stormy, windy weather along the East Coast.

AP - Suicide bombings targeting religious minorities killed at least 23 people in Pakistan on Friday, driving up the toll of sectarian assaults in a country already battered by massive flooding.

AP - A scientist has been detained at the Miami International Airport after screeners spotted a metal canister in his luggage that looked like a pipe bomb, prompting an evacuation, a government official said.

AP - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday he saw and heard evidence that the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy is taking hold in critical Kandahar province.

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.

AP - The unemployment rate may be about to rise again.

AP - Stark differences exist between the oil platform fire in the Gulf of Mexico and the blast that led to the massive BP spill. Most notably, no one was killed and no crude was gushing into the water, but the distinctions don't end there.

AP - Republican Jesse Kelly was still basking in the glow of his victory in an Arizona congressional primary when the Democratic congresswoman he's trying to unseat released a scathing TV ad branding him "a risk" who would gamble away people's retirement savings.

AP - U.S. Agriculture Department employees worked full-time at two Iowa egg farms at the center of a salmonella outbreak and massive recall, but two former workers said they ignored complaints about conditions at one site.

AP - They all want to be like Maria. They all want to beat Maria, too.

Reuters - An oil and gas platform operated by Mariner Energy burst into flames in the Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, but the crew of 13 escaped and there were no signs of an oil spill, the Coast Guard said.

Reuters - Hurricane Earl battered North Carolina's coast with rain, winds and waves on Friday and swirled up the U.S. eastern seaboard toward New England and Canada as a weakened but still dangerous storm.

Reuters - BP Plc said the cost of dealing with its oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico had risen to $8 billion as the oil giant prepared to release the findings of an internal probe into the causes of the disaster.

Reuters - A blast ripped through a rally in the Pakistani city of Quetta on Friday, killing at least 22 people, the second major attack this week, piling pressure on the civilian government struggling with a flood crisis.

Reuters - Israeli and Palestinian leaders agreed to a series of direct talks on Thursday, seeking to forge the framework for a U.S.-backed peace deal within a year and end a conflict that has boiled for six decades.