Days before the first black president takes office, the Supreme Court agreed Friday to consider overturning a key feature of the main federal law that ensures access to the polls by minorities.
After reportedly receiving a $3 million ransom dropped by parachute, pirates said they released a captured Saudi supertanker Friday, ending a two-month drama that helped galvanize international efforts to fight piracy off Africa's coast.
Helicopters plucked tourists from destroyed, mountaintop resorts as the death toll from Costa Rica's magnitude-6.1 earthquake rose to at least 9 victims, the Red Cross said Friday.
Five small bombs exploded outside two theaters in a major eastern Pakistan city late Friday, but there were no casualties, police and other officials said.
Israel and Hamas leaders rebuffed U.N. calls for an immediate halt to the fighting in Gaza on Friday, all but ensuring that the war will go into its third week despite the rising death toll among civilians.
Sudan's embattled president marked the fourth anniversary of a fragile peace between the country's north and south, promising on Friday to restore confidence in national unity even as he faces accusations by an international court for war crimes in Darfur.
Israeli jets and ground troops hammered at Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip and Islamic militants fired barrages of rockets at southern Israeli cities Friday, ignoring a U.N. resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire after two weeks of combat.
China plans a major revamp of its public hospitals - criticized for their lack of access, huge fees and poor doctor services - as part of its long-awaited reform of the national health care system.
A leading Shiite human rights activist in Bahrain said he was summoned Friday by Bahrain's state prosecutors on suspicion of inciting against the kingdom's Sunni rulers.
Syria has responded to Israel's Gaza offensive with harsh words for the Israelis and expressions of firm support for Hamas. But it's unlikely to do much more.
The government wants to require foreign and Iraqi journalists to sign a code of conduct in exchange for permission to attend this month's provincial elections, raising concerns among media analysts that independent coverage could be undermined.
With fighting all around them, Israeli troops knocked on the door of the Samouni clan in Gaza City last weekend and told them to leave, directing them to the building owned by a relative. Twenty-four hours later, three shells slammed into the structure where dozens of people were huddling, according to survivor accounts Friday.
An unusually heavy snowfall coated downtown Madrid in white on Friday, shutting down the city's airport but providing rare opportunities for snowball fights while intrepid golfers drove their balls into the storm.
China's top food and drug regulator has ordered a halt to the sale and production of the weight-loss drug fenfluramine hydrochloride, citing its harmful side effects.
American troops in Iraq will be allowed to drink beer without fear of court-martial for this year's Super Bowl - an exception to a strict military ban on drinking alcohol in combat zones.
Russia's Gazprom said it could restart gas shipments through Ukrainian pipelines to Europe on Friday once EU observers begin monitoring the gas flow in Ukraine.
Israel, Hamas defy UN call for cease-fire
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