AP - Health care legislation drafted by a key Senate committee would expand coverage to 94 percent of all eligible Americans at a 10-year cost of $829 billion, congressional budget experts said Wednesday, a preliminary estimate trumpeted by the White House and likely to power the measure past a major hurdle within days.

AP - A powerful car bomb exploded in the busy center of Afghanistan's capital early Thursday, killing at least seven civilians, destroying vehicles and blowing off the walls of shops, officials said.

AP - The Afghanistan war reached its once-unthinkable eighth anniversary Wednesday as President Barack Obama, seeking a revamped strategy for the increasingly unpopular conflict, focused more closely with his war council on neighboring Pakistan's role in the fight against al-Qaida.