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This edition was generated on Thu May 22 08:45:01 EDT 2008
Oil prices rose above $135 a barrel for the first time Thursday, with supply worries, global demand and an ever weakening U.S dollar driving crude futures up.
LOS ANGELES - The grown-up rocker triumphed over the smooth-voiced kid as David Cook claimed the "American Idol" title Wednesday, and it wasn't as much of a surprise as it seemed.
YANGON, Myanmar - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon flew into Myanmar's disaster zone Thursday as he pressed the country's leaders to open the doors to critical international aid for some 2.5 million cyclone survivors.
LOS ANGELES - The urge to smoke is contagious, but quitting apparently is, too. A team of researchers who showed that obesity can spread person-to-person has found a similar pattern with smoking cessation: A smoker is more likely to kick the habit if a spouse, friend, co-worker or sibling did.
NEW YORK - Never mind the free lunch. Almost nothing is complimentary on airlines anymore, not even what many passengers consider a simple necessity: a single checked bag.
LOS ANGELES - Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers waited until the third quarter to get going. Once they did, the San Antonio Spurs couldn't stop them. Bryant scored all but two of his 27 points after halftime, including a go-ahead, 10-foot jumper in the lane with 23.9 seconds remaining, and the Lakers rallied from a 20-point deficit to beat the Spurs 89-85 on Wednesday night in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals.
YINGXIU, China (Reuters) - More than 80,000 people are dead or missing from China's worst earthquake in decades, the government said on Thursday, as concerns rose that disease, the rainy season and aftershocks could bring yet more pain.
LONDON (Reuters) - Oil sped to new peaks for a third straight day on Thursday to top $135 a barrel as investors fretted over long-term supply constraints and a big drop in U.S. crude stocks.
SUNRISE, Florida (Reuters) - The souvenir vendors outside Hillary Clinton's campaign appearances have added a new button to their wares that reads "Chelsea in 2016" with a picture of the former first daughter.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, praised for curbing violence in Iraq, seeks to persuade senators on Thursday he can handle the task of heading the U.S. military in the entire Middle East and beyond.
BAIJI, Iraq (Reuters) - A U.S. helicopter airstrike on Wednesday night killed eight civilians, including two children, north of Baghdad, police officials said on Thursday.
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel set terms for concluding a peace deal with Syria on Thursday, closing ranks with Washington in demanding Damascus distance itself from Iran and stop supporting Palestinian and Lebanese militants.
BEIJING (Reuters) - China reacted coolly on Thursday to a suggestion from the Dalai Lama that he would be happy to attend the Beijing Olympics, and suggested talks with Tibet's exiled spiritual leader's envoys may be delayed by the Sichuan earthquake.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House on Wednesday voted to override President George W. Bush's veto of the $289 billion farm bill that expands public nutrition programs for poor Americans but does not cut subsidies for wealthy farmers as much as Bush demanded.
YANGON (AFP) - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon arrived in Myanmar on Thursday in a high-profile bid to convince the regime to welcome a major international relief operation three weeks after the cyclone disaster.
JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - South African President Thabo Mbeki has called in troops to halt attacks on foreigners as the death toll from more than a week of violence nearly doubled and attacks began to spread.
MIAMI (AFP) - Invoking Democratic nightmares of the 2000 Florida presidential recount, Hillary Clinton demanded the revival of two voided primaries as she sought to halt Barack Obama's march toward the party's nomination.
LONDON (AFP) - Vandals used a hammer and screwdriver to vandalize England's world-famous Stonehenge ancient monument, the first such incident for decades, officials said Thursday.
TBILISI, Georgia (AFP) - Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's party was close to securing victory Thursday in parliamentary polls closely watched by outside powers vying for influence in the region.
PARIS (AFP) - Astronomers on Wednesday said they had witnessed for the first time how a dying star erupted into a supernova, one of the mightiest yet most elusive sights in the Universe.
LONDON (AFP) - World oil prices broke yet more records on Thursday, catapulting above 135 dollars a barrel for the first time on runaway fears about rampant demand exceeding supply, analysts said.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrat Barack Obama has opened an 8-point national lead on Republican John McCain as the U.S. presidential rivals turn their focus to a general election race, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Tuesday allowing the Justice Department to sue OPEC members for limiting oil supplies and working together to set crude prices, but the White House threatened to veto the measure.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler, a poster boy for rock 'n' roll decadence in the 1970s, has entered a Los Angeles rehab facility after two decades as a passionate advocate of sobriety, according to an report.
CHENGDU, China (Reuters) - China vowed on Wednesday to deal severely with anyone found responsible for shoddy state building work, as parents demanded to know why last week's earthquake destroyed so many schools, killing thousands of children.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iceland is the world's most peaceful nation while the United States is ranked among the bottom third, according to a study released on Tuesday.
LOS ANGELES - Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers waited until the third quarter to get going. Once they did, the San Antonio Spurs couldn't stop them. Bryant scored all but two of his 27 points after halftime, including a go-ahead, 10-foot jumper in the lane with 23.9 seconds remaining, and the Lakers rallied from a 20-point deficit to beat the Spurs 89-85 on Wednesday night in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals.
WASHINGTON - The number of newly laid off workers filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week to the lowest level in a month.