A second Indonesian earthquake struck near the city of Padang Thursday as the death toll rose to at least 529. Some residents, fearing aftershocks, sought safety outside despite monsoon rains.
Iran agreed to open its newly revealed uranium enrichment plant to inspectors and to send most of its openly declared enriched uranium to Russia to be turned into fuel.
With swine flu now widespread across the country, federal health officials released Tamiflu for children and began taking orders from the states for the new swine flu vaccine.
AP - Fearing a backlash, Democrats worked to smooth the impact of sweeping health care legislation on working-class families Thursday as they pushed President Barack Obama's top domestic priority toward a crucial Senate advance. The most far-reaching overhaul in decades aims to protect millions who have unreliable coverage or none at all and to curb insurance company abuses.
AP - Across this coastal provincial capital, hardest hit by the latest earthquake to devastate Indonesia, mourners, survivors and rescue workers alike clawed through the rubble.
AP - David Letterman acknowledged on Thursday's show that he had sexual relationships with female employees and that someone tried to extort $2 million from him over the affairs.
"Late Show" host David Letterman told his audience Thursday that he'd had sexual relations with members of his staff and that he revealed those liaisons during testimony for a case involving an attempted extortion. "I had to go downtown and testify before a grand jury," Letterman said, according to a release from his production company.
The International Olympic Committee was preparing Friday to elect a host city for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, a prize so sought-after that presidents, sports legends and royalty have turned out to lobby for their country's candidate city.
The oldest-known hominid skeleton was a 4-foot-tall female who walked upright more than 4 million years ago and offers new clues to how humans may have evolved, scientists say. "This is not an ordinary fossil. It's not a chimp. It's not a human. It shows us what we used to be," said project co-director Tim White, a paleontologist at the University of California, Berkeley.