AP - Florida's governor is concerned about safety at home and around the world, a feeling shared by national and world leaders, over a plan by the head of a small church to burn copies of Islam's holiest text to mark the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

AP - After a regional airliner crashed in western New York a year and a half ago, killing 50 people, the Obama administration promised swift action to prevent similar tragedies. High on the list: new rules governing the number of hours pilots may work, to prevent tired flight crews from making fatal errors.

AP - North Korea celebrated its 62nd anniversary Thursday with odes to supreme leader Kim Jong Il and pilgrimages to his late father's statue amid hints that a political meeting believed aimed at promoting his son as successor is imminent.

AP - Former first lady Laura Bush will speak at a National Park Service fundraiser in Pittsburgh on Friday, a day before joining Michelle Obama in rural Pennsylvania to remember the victims of Flight 93, which crashed there in the Sept. 11 attacks.

AP - The number of people dying on the nation's roads has fallen to its lowest level in six decades, helped by a combination of seat belts, safer cars and tougher enforcement of drunken driving laws.

AP - As thousands of people waited to learn if their homes survived a raging Colorado wildfire, Dan Hackett hiked a second time behind roadblocks to make sure his house near boulder was still standing.

AP - Cuba's communist economic model has come in for criticism from an unlikely source: Fidel Castro.

AP - BP's long-awaited internal report on what it believes went wrong when a rig exploded and started the massive Gulf oil spill never mentions the words blame, regret, apology, mistake or pollution. The word fault shows up 20 times, but only once in the same sentence as the company's name.

AP - An attorney for Britney Spears' ex-husband called child abuse claims leveled at the singer by a former bodyguard baseless and motivated by money.

AP - On a wind-swept day at the U.S. Open that had everyone complaining about the conditions, Roger Federer simply embraced them.

Reuters - An obscure U.S. Christian pastor whose plan to burn copies of the Koran on September 11 has sparked an international outcry said on Wednesday he would go ahead with the event despite warnings it would endanger American troops in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Reuters - Afghan President Hamid Karzai intends to impose rules restricting international involvement in anti-corruption investigations, The Washington Post reported on Thursday.

Reuters - President Barack Obama, fighting to keep Democrats in charge of Congress, said on Wednesday the United States could not afford to extend Bush-era tax cuts for the rich and accused Republicans of being fiscally irresponsible.

Reuters - Mexican authorities arrested seven suspected drug cartel members believed to have killed 72 migrants heading to the United States, in what is said to be the worst massacre in the country's escalating drug war, the government said on Wednesday.

Reuters - Some Tea Partiers admit mistakes were made. Others are quick to describe the movement's recent efforts in the political arena as not quite ready for prime time.

AFP - Taliban leader Mullah Omar said the NATO-led coalition is losing the war in Afghanistan, calling on Afghans to redouble their struggle and pressing the United States to withdraw.

AFP - A small Florida church has shrugged off global outrage and vowed to go ahead with a Koran burning ceremony amid growing fears it will ignite a wave of Islamic rage.