AP - Under White House pressure to act swiftly, House and Senate Democratic leaders reached for agreement Friday on President Barack Obama's health care bill, sweetened suddenly by fresh billions for student aid and a sense that breakthroughs are at hand.

AP - An American seized in Yemen in a sweep of suspected al-Qaida members had been a laborer at six U.S. nuclear power plants, and authorities are investigating whether he had access to sensitive information or materials that would be useful to terrorists.

AP - President Barack Obama says he wants projects helping specific states yanked from the health care bill Congress is writing. Democratic senators, being senators, beg to differ.

AP - The Obama administration unveiled its plan Saturday to radically change his predecessor's No Child Left Behind law in hopes of replacing an accountability system that in the last decade has tagged more than a third of schools as failing and created a hodgepodge of sometimes weak academic standards among states.

AP - The name of the late actor Corey Haim was found on a fraudulent prescription for a powerful painkiller that authorities said Friday was obtained through a major drug ring.

AP - The Vatican on Saturday denounced what it called aggressive attempts to drag Pope Benedict XVI into the spreading scandals of pedophile priests in his German homeland.

Reuters - The leading lights of U.S. musical theater will sing "Happy Birthday" to the great Broadway composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim on his 80th birthday in two New York Philharmonic concerts next week.

AP - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Friday delivered a stinging rebuke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his government's announcement this week of new Jewish housing in east Jerusalem, calling it "a deeply negative signal" for the Mideast peace process and ties with the U.S.

AFP - New Zealand anti-whaling activist Peter Bethune, who is under arrest in Japan for trespass, is reported to be well and in good spirits, Foreign Minister Murray McCully said Saturday.

AP - Xavier Henry scored 11 points in a stunning 21-2 run that broke a tight game wide open and carried No. 1 Kansas past No. 23 Texas A&M 79-66 in a rough-and-tumble Big 12 semifinal Friday night.

Reuters - One of the world's largest studies of the contraceptive pill has found that women who have taken it can expect longer lives and are less likely to die from any cause, including cancer and heart disease.

AP - Investigators are confronted with a series of nagging questions as they try to unravel the case of a California real estate agent who said his Toyota Prius turned into a runaway death trap after the gas pedal became stuck.