AP - With no margin for rebellion, Senate Democrats pushed toward a crucial weekend test vote on their sweeping health care bill Friday, and wavering moderates appeared to be falling in line on President Barack Obama's signature issue.

AP - Holding back tears, Oprah Winfrey told her studio audience Friday that she would end her show in 2011 after a quarter-century on the air, saying prayer and careful thought led her to her decision.

AP - As the nation's military academies try to recruit more minorities, they aren't getting much help from members of Congress from big-city districts with large numbers of blacks, Hispanics and Asians.

AP - Two days before shipping off to war, Marine Pfc. Jesse Sheets sat inside a trailer in the Mojave Desert, his gaze fixed on a computer that flashed a rhythmic pulse of contrasting images.

AP - A Vatican researcher claims a nearly invisible text on the Shroud of Turin proves the authenticity of the artifact revered as Jesus' burial cloth.

AP - Heidi Klum and her post-baby body led the parade at the annual Victoria's Secret fashion show, which returned to New York with some fresh faces after four years on the road.

AP - Retired NBA star Jayson Williams will not be in a New Jersey courtroom Friday to enter a plea in the 2002 shooting death of a hired driver.

Reuters - The pace of job losses slowed in many U.S. states in October, and the unemployment rate slipped in hard-hit Michigan, the Labor Department said on Friday, hinting the recession may be easing in some areas.

Reuters - Women in the United States should start cervical cancer screening at age 21 and most do not need an annual Pap smear, according to new guidelines issued on Friday that aim to reduce the risk of unnecessary treatment.

Reuters - A suicide bomber in southwestern Afghanistan killed 17 people Friday, and an Afghan lawmaker escaped a separate blast on the outskirts of Kabul but five of his bodyguards were killed, officials said.

Reuters - A Florida jury on Thursday ordered cigarette maker Philip Morris USA to pay $300 million in damages to a 61-year-old ex-smoker named Cindy Naugle who is wheelchair-bound by emphysema.

Reuters - European Union leaders named Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy, who is little known outside his own country, as the bloc's first president on Thursday to lead efforts to make it more influential on the world stage.

Reuters - Senior officials from six world powers said on Friday they were disappointed Iran had not accepted proposals intended to delay its potential to make nuclear bombs, and urged Tehran to reconsider.

AFP - Incoming EU president Herman Van Rompuy kept a low profile Friday as the 27-nation bloc's leaders faced flak for picking him and a little-known British peer to lead a revamped Europe on the world stage.

AFP - Bomb attacks on Friday killed 23 people in Afghanistan, a deadly start to President Hamid Karzai's second term that underscored spiralling insecurity nine years into the US-led war.