AP - Four suicide bombers struck different parts of the dangerous southern city of Kandahar in attacks Saturday evening that collapsed buildings and caused casualties, officials said.

AP - A coalition led by Iraq's prime minister held a comfortable lead Saturday in the crucial contest for the nation's capital, bolstering his chances in an election deciding who will lead the country as U.S. forces go home.

AP - President Barack Obama says he wants projects helping specific states yanked from the health care bill Congress is writing. Democratic senators, being senators, beg to differ.

AP - A Colorado woman has been detained in Ireland in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist whose sketch offended many Muslims, a U.S. official said Saturday.

AP - It often starts as a voice in the wilderness, but can swell into an entire nation's demand for truth. From Ireland to Germany, Europe's many victims of child abuse in the Roman Catholic church are finally breaking social taboos and confronting the clergy to face its demons.

AP - America is springing forward.

AP - The Obama administration unveiled its plan Saturday to radically change his predecessor's No Child Left Behind law in hopes of replacing an accountability system that in the last decade has tagged more than a third of schools as failing and created a hodgepodge of sometimes weak academic standards among states.

AP - A U.N. meeting to assess progress in advancing the fight for women's equality that ended Friday had a dramatically different slant than a similar session held five years ago: This time, the United States was not trying to make an anti-abortion declaration a crucial theme.

AP - Students have wrapped ribbons around 8,000 sunflowers to hand out at a memorial service for Chelsea King, the 17-year-old girl whose murder has shaken her community and spurred calls for legal changes in how child sex offenders are treated.

AP - Mike Leach sat across from his accuser Saturday as Craig James gave sworn testimony in the former coach's lawsuit against Texas Tech.

Reuters - A Taliban suicide bomber targeting security forces killed at least 11 people on Saturday, Pakistani police said, part of a renewed push against the state after one of the biggest security crackdowns in years.

Reuters - Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki held a wide lead on Saturday in early results from Baghdad, the major prize in a tight election race that Iraqis hope will bring stability after years of sectarian conflict.

Reuters - Irish police have released three of the seven people arrested on Tuesday in connection with an alleged plot to murder a Swedish cartoonist over a drawing depicting the Prophet Mohammad with the body of a dog.

Reuters - The Vatican rallied around Pope Benedict on Saturday, dismissing suggestions he had tried to cover up priestly child abuse in Germany.

Reuters - The foreign ministers of Turkey and Sweden condemned on Saturday a vote in the Swedish parliament that defined the early 20th-century killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide.

AFP - At least 10 people were killed in a suicide attack in Pakistan's Swat valley on Saturday, a day after a series of bombings brought chaos and bloodshed to the city of Lahore, police said.

AFP - Iraqi premier Nuri al-Maliki's bid to retain his job gained steam on Saturday, as early results crucially put him ahead in Baghdad, while rival blocs began jostling over the formation of a government.