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.
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?
AFP - President Barack Obama will next week make a new bid to stem ebbing political support over the slowing economic recovery, with visits to the struggling Midwest and a formal White House news conference.
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 - 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.
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.
AFP - Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras on Friday unveiled a huge share offering which could raise 64 billion dollars to help finance new exploration projects in the country.
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.
AFP - Azerbaijan will double gas exports to Russia in 2011 and increase them further from 2012, the countries said on Friday in a move that could undercut Europe's drive to secure Central Asian supplies.
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.
AP - Suicide bombings targeting religious minorities killed at least 44 people in Pakistan on Friday, sharply driving up the toll of sectarian assaults in a country already battered by massive flooding.
AP - A weakened Hurricane Earl delivered only a glancing blow to North Carolina's Outer Banks early Friday on its way up the East Coast, flooding roads on the narrow vacation islands and knocking out power but staying farther offshore than feared. There were no immediate reports of any injuries.
Reuters - Chinese officials have ordered state-owned companies to meet with investment bankers to explore potential options to block BHP Billiton's $39 billion bid for Canada's Potash Corp, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
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 - Chinese officials have ordered state-owned companies to meet with investment bankers to explore potential options to block BHP Billiton's $39 billion bid for Canada's Potash Corp, according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.
AP - A Portuguese court found six men and one woman guilty Friday of crimes relating to child sex abuse in a major trial that lasted nearly six years, a prosecution lawyer said.
Reuters - Walgreen Co posted weaker-than-expected August sales at stores open more than a year, hurt by generic drug introductions and a decrease in customer traffic.
Reuters - Campbell Soup Co posted lower-than-expected quarterly sales and forecast sales growth for the new fiscal year would be below its long-term target as the world's largest soup company grapples with a weak economy.
AP - A Turkish Cypriot businessman who voluntarily returned to Britain after 17 years to face fraud charges learned Friday that he will have to wait more than a year for the trial he insists will vindicate him.
AP - The Campbell Soup Co. reported a larger fourth-quarter net income Friday, a time when the temperature rises and its soup sales traditionally drop.
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 - 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.
BusinessWeek - Goldman Sachs may not have a lot of friends in the White House these days, but one of its former employees has made a good impression. After three years as an analyst in Goldman's fixed-income, currencies, and commodities division, Monique Pean began her own jewelry line that can now be found in Barneys, Jeffrey New York, and around the neck of Michelle Obama.
AP - Soldiers killed at least 25 suspected cartel members Thursday in a raid and gunbattle in a Mexican state near the U.S. border that has become one of the most dangerous battlegrounds in the country's drug war.
AFP - Retail sales across the 16 nations sharing the euro rose by a modest 0.1 percent in July, after a 0.2 percent increase in June, with drops in Germany and Spain, European Union data showed on Friday.
The Atlantic Wire - Eric Felten on the Proliferation of 'Annoying' License Agreements The curious case of Craig Smallwood,
a video-game aficionado who was marginally successful in suing a game maker after alleging that their product caused him "emotional distress,"
serves as a starting point for the Wall Street Journal contributor to discuss
the "weedy contractual tendrils crawling into every electronic
transaction." He's referring to the incredibly long, obligatory agreements that users seldom read before clicking "I Agree." If Smallwood's case succeeds, it might "chip away at the enforceability" of these contracts, causing a lamentable "gold rush" of lawsuits against game makers.Michael
Gerson on Religious Tribalism The irony of the vigorous Christian backlash (at least among some outspoken
pastors) against mosques being built in America is that "the Christian
fundamentalist view of Islam bears a striking resemblance to the New
York Times' view of Christian fundamentalism," argues The Washington
Post columnist. "Both create a caricature, then assert that the
Constitution is under assault by an army of straw men." Unfortunately,
the Christians who are protesting Islam seem to be oblivious to this
fact, and it manages "to undermine their interests and their convictions
at the same time."Steven Pearlstein on Tax Hikes for the Rich The Democrats are in search of a game-changer to halt the potential GOP tsunami this November. The Washington Post columnist has a solution:
vote for a tax increase on the wealthy. Unfortunately, there are some
Democratic "wusses who are so scared about the prospect of losing their
seats by voting for a tax increase on the rich that they are pushing
the White House and congressional leaders to put off the issue until
after the election." That strategy plays right into Republican hands, and would Obama in a difficult position. Pearlstein
concludes: "if Democrats can't make a convincing case for raising taxes
on 315,000 millionaires and using the money to rebuild the country's
aging infrastructure, then maybe they don't deserve to be reelected."Jonah
Goldberg on Obama's Salesmanship Gap These are strange days for the
syndicated conservative columnist. After spending a year and a half with
Barack Obama as his president, he says
he has come down with "a mild case of Bill Clinton nostalgia." Explains
Goldberg, "I miss having a Democrat who could sell." Clinton, Goldberg
points out, was a warm and empathetic communicator. This is in contrast
to "Obama's 'People of Earth, Stop Your Bickering' aloofness." The
effort is there, writes Goldberg, but the law professor in Obama all too
often "confuses explanation for persuasion."David Brooks on the Obama Administration's Alternate History Writing in The New York Times, Brooks offers up an alternate history
of the first 18 months of the Obama presidency. Shockingly, things are
looking a little better in the Brooks version. Brooks-verse Obama passed
a stimulus that "relied heavily on cutting payroll taxes" in lieu of
large federal programs. On the Hill, Democratic aides "developed a
political strategy they called Save Nancy From Herself" to minimize the
Speaker's personal contribution to the party platform. It all helped
Democrats, Brooks writes, to "define themselves as the economic Back to
Basics Party."
AP - Actor Paul Hogan, star of the "Crocodile Dundee" movie trilogy, has been cleared to return home to the United States after he was barred last month from leaving Australia because of a disputed tax bill, his lawyer said Friday.
Time.com - A new anti-immigration book by a director on the board of Germany's central bank has outraged the nation -- and has critics calling for his job
AP - Former Dodger CEO Jamie McCourt was more concerned with protecting the couple's luxurious homes than dealing with baseball matters and didn't want to take the risk associated with buying one of baseball's most storied franchises six years ago, her estranged husband said.
AP - Like many other vets, Don Fosburg marked the anniversary of World War II's end reflecting on a victory dearly earned and on men who helped make that happen but never came home.
AP - With less than two weeks before Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn awards a lucrative, first-of-its-kind contract for the private management of the state's $2 billion-a-year lottery, some are criticizing the selection process as too secretive and questioning whether it favors one powerful bidder.