North Korea is preparing its largest political meeting in 30 years, and leader Kim Jong Il is expected to appoint a son to a key Workers Party position in what would be the strongest sign yet of a succession movement in the secretive communist country.



North Korea - Kim Jong-il - Workers Party - Asia - Communist state

Whether or not she emerges as winner following recent elections, Australia's first woman prime minister will have led the nation's oldest political party to one of the lowest points in its 119-year history.



Australia - Prime minister - Political party - Government - Politics

A "D+" campaign logo aimed at encouraging recruitment at Drake University is getting a failing grade from some faculty, students and alumni.



Drake University - Student - Education - Colleges and Universities - Des Moines Iowa

Backers of a $500 million proposal to build biomass power plants in Pownal and Fair Haven are hoping to lure foreign investors with the promise of a U.S. residency permit.



Power station - Biofuel - Investment - Energy - Business

A Connecticut judge has rejected a newspaper's request to lift or modify a three-year-old gag order in the case of a man charged in the killings of a mother and her two daughters during a home invasion in 2007.



Murder - Connecticut - Home invasion - Crime and Justice - Injustice

Maine's Acadia National Park is taking steps to avoid a repeat of last year's tragedy, when a powerful wave churned up by offshore Hurricane Bill swept a 7-year-old girl to her death.



AcadiaNationalPark - Maine - National park - United States - Travel and Tourism

The National Weather Service is projecting that Hurricane Earl will be downgraded to a tropical storm about the time it makes landfall in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.



Hurricane Earl - Federal Emergency Management Agency - United States - Weather Phenomena - Meteorology

Iran's military chief of staff says Tehran could strike Israel's nuclear facility if the Jewish state were to attack Iran's nuclear sites.



Israel - Iran - Middle East - Tehran - United States

A New Hampshire woman is seeking more than $24 million in damages from the maker of a prescription drug she took to ease shoulder pain, but suffered a reaction so severe that she is now blind and scarred by internal and external burns.



New Hampshire - United States - Prescription drug - Jury - Health

A government official said Friday that a scientist has been detained in Miami after screeners found a metal canister in his luggage that looked like a pipe bomb.



Miami International Airport - Police - Miami-Dade County Florida - Bomb disposal - Associated Press

African Union peacekeepers have established nine new bases in Somalia's capital in recent months and will help develop Somali government forces to defeat al-Qaida-linked Islamist insurgents, an AU official said Friday.



Somalia - African Union - Africa - Uganda - Somalia African Union

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has asked Israel to consider signing up to the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.



International Atomic Energy Agency - Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - Israel - Middle East - Nuclear

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.



Fraud - Polly Peck - Business - Turkish Cypriot - Business magnate

Mexico's Foreign Minister has dampened hopes for a breakthrough deal at the Cancun climate change talks in November.



Mexico - Cancún - Quintana Roo - Cancun - States

The Ohio woman who became the youngest person to row across the Atlantic alone says oars used in her feat have been lost in a car theft.



Ohio - United States - Rowing - Crime - Business and Economy

Four men have been killed in a shooting in southwest Chicago. Authorities say the men were in a garage in the West Lawn neighborhood Thursday night when they were gunned down. Police say they believe the men were specifically targeted in the shooting.



Police - Chicago - Recreation - Guns - Competition Shooting

General rule of thumb: when looking to buy marijuana, don't text the sheriff. Authorities said a Helena teen sent out a text message last week in search of pot, but instead of contacting the drug dealer, he hit a wrong number and inadvertently sent the message to Lewis and Clark County Sheriff Leo Dutton.



Sheriff - Law - Cannabis - Law Enforcement - Illegal drug trade

Police said an Erie-area woman somehow managed to zap both herself and her brother with a stun gun during a drunken dispute. Darlene Newara, 45, will have a hearing Oct. 18 on charges including driving under the influence, disorderly conduct for fighting, and public drunkenness in the Aug. 8 incident.



Police - Alcohol intoxication - Driving under the influence - Public intoxication - Disorderly conduct

Hurricane Earl had lost some of its strength and was at category 2 strength with winds up to 105 mph early Friday off North Carolina's coast.



North Carolina - Hurricane Earl - United States - Time Warner Cable - Meteorology

Two young goats wandered onto the thin ledge of a railroad bridge and spent nearly two days high above the ground until rescuers in a towering cherry picker plucked them from their perch, hungry but safe.



Goat - Rail transport - Livestock - Business - Agriculture and Forestry

Lebanese security officials say several explosions have caused a large fire in a southern village.



Lebanon - Southern Lebanon - Middle East - Hezbollah - United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon

Kenya is allowing the International Criminal Court to open an office in the country. The court's prosecutor is investigating top Kenyan leaders and business people for their roles in political violence that killed more than 1,000 people in 2007-08.



Kenya - International Criminal Court - War crime - Africa - Sudan

Japanese prosecutors charged a man believed to belong to the "Pink Panthers" ring of jewelry thieves Friday with stealing a diamond tiara and other jewelry worth millions from a Tokyo store.



Pink Panther - Tokyo - Japan - Asia - Theft

A judge has started reading out a Portuguese court's verdicts on more than 800 alleged crimes in a major child sex abuse trial that has lasted nearly six years.



Child abuse - Child sexual abuse - Portugal - Children Youth and Family - Prevention

Judges are warning that Radovan Karadzic's genocide trial could take up to two years longer than expected if prosecutors and the former Bosnian Serb leader do not speed up the case.



Genocide - Serbs of Bosnia and Herzegovina - Radovan Karadžić - War crime - Yugoslavia