Aaron's Daily WWW Newspaper

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is asking Congress to extend its oversight of the financial system to include the shadowy market of derivatives, the kind of complex financial instruments that helped bring down the giant insurer AIG.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. reported a flat first-quarter profit on Thursday as revenue from its huge international operations was hurt by the stronger dollar.

LOS ANGELES - Danny Gokey is dancing off "American Idol," leaving showy Adam Lambert and twangy Kris Allen to duke it out in the finale of the popular Fox singing competition next week.

LOS ANGELES - It's always been a mad MAD world for Neil Cuadra. The 55-year-old Internet entrepreneur has photographed a portrait he made of MAD magazine mascot Alfred E. Neuman's head using junk mail CDs and DVDs and sent it to the magazine, a feat that landed him in the magazine's 500th issue, published in April.

DENVER - The Denver Nuggets are leaving all the animosity with the Dallas Mavericks' players, fans and owner behind and are heading to their first Western Conference finals since 1985. Behind 30 points from Carmelo Anthony and 28 from Chauncey Billups, the Nuggets beat the Mavericks 124-110 on Wednesday night to wrap up their semifinal series in five feisty games.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Documents made public on Wednesday confirm former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson gave nine major banks no choice but to allow the government to take equity stakes in them as the Bush administration moved to address turmoil in the financial industry.

YANGON (Reuters) - Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was charged on Thursday with breaking the terms of her house arrest and faces up to five years in jail after an American intruder sneaked into her lakeside home, her party said.

COLOMBO (Reuters) - Thousands of Sri Lankans under fire waded across a lagoon to escape the island's war zone, where the military has surrounded Tamil Tiger rebels for the final battle in a quarter-century conflict.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama is considering holding terrorism suspects in the United States under a revamp of military commission trials for Guantanamo detainees, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan will defeat the Taliban militarily but could lose the public relations war if it fails to help the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the fighting, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders on Wednesday said they would like to steer a comprehensive overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system through the House of Representatives by the end of July.

NAZARETH, Israel (Reuters) - Pope Benedict, visiting the town of Jesus's boyhood, on Thursday addressed the largest crowd of his Middle East trip and said governments had a duty to defend traditional heterosexual marriage and family values.

SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said on Thursday it would put two U.S. journalists it arrested in March on trial on June 4, ratcheting up tension with Washington after a rocket launch and a threat to conduct a nuclear test.

YANGON (AFP) - Myanmar's military junta charged pro-democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi Thursday with breaching the terms of her house arrest after a US man swam across a lake and hid inside her home, her lawyer said.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President Barack Obama has reversed a decision to release photos showing abuse of "war on terror" detainees, saying he feared it would cause a backlash against US troops abroad.

NAZARETH, Israel (AFP) - Pope Benedict XVI Thursday urged faiths sharing the Holy Land to reject hatred and live in peace as he celebrated the largest mass of his pilgrimage outside Nazareth, hometown of Jesus.

COLOMBO (AFP) - Sri Lanka rejected international calls to halt its final offensive against Tamil rebels on Thursday, hours after the United Nations Security Council called for civilian lives to be spared.

MANADO, Indonesia (AFP) - Ministers and officials from more than 70 nations called Thursday for oceans to be included on the agenda of global climate change talks aimed at finding a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

NEW YORK (AFP) - The world's biggest retailer Wal-Mart reported Thursday a 3.02-billion-dollar net income for the first quarter of 2009, the same as a year ago.

TOKYO (AFP) - Sony Corp. on Thursday announced its first annual loss in 14 years and warned it would stay in the red this year as the global economic downturn inflicts heavy damage on Japan's high-tech giants.