AP - Like sweet, sultry samba music, Rio hit all the right notes. Chicago had Barack Obama. Tokyo had $4 billion in the bank. Madrid had powerful friends. But none of that mattered. Rio de Janeiro had the enchanting story ? of about 400 million sports-mad people on a giant untapped and vibrant continent yearning, hoping, that the Olympics finally might come to them. And the International Olympic Committee was hooked.
AP - Eight months in office, Barack Obama has now pushed closer than any other president in generations to creating a basic health care safety net for working Americans. Yet the fate of legislation delivering on his goal is far from certain: Republicans are nearly unified in opposition, Democrats hardly united in support.
AP - At a pivotal point in the administration's Afghanistan strategy, President Barack Obama and his top Afghan war commander met privately aboard Air Force One Friday for a talk the White House described as productive.
AP - A CBS newsman who prosecutors said was desperate and deep in debt was charged Friday with trying to blackmail David Letterman for $2 million in a plot that forced the late night comic to acknowledge having sex with some of the women who work for him.
AP - Ratna Kurniasari Virgo lay surrounded by death for 40 hours ? trapped with a broken leg between the collapsed walls of her college and the bodies of her dead friends. Her rescue Friday was a rare tale of survival two days after a massive Indonesian earthquake killed at least 715 people and left nearly 3,000 missing under the rubble of tens of thousands of buildings.
AP - Medicare recipients could see higher premiums for prescription drug coverage as a result of changes to complex provisions in a Senate health care bill, a senior Republican said Friday.
AP - Sen. John Ensign of Nevada was only beginning to emerge from a self-imposed political exile over fallout from his extramarital affair with a campaign aide. Now, tawdry new details about the case are raising fresh questions whether the Ensign can be re-elected in 2012 ? or even face criminal charges over his behavior.
AP - The husband of former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has quit his oil field job on the North Slope. Todd Palin's resignation as a production operator for oil giant BP PLC comes almost two months after his wife stepped down as Alaska governor and shortly before the release of her highly anticipated memoir in a deal rumored to be worth millions.
AP - An 80-year-old Ohio man is recovering from a week in which he was beaten during a home invasion and then shot while trying to learn about guns. Ralph Needs said he wouldn't want anyone else to experience what he's been through. He was tied up and pistol-whipped when at least three intruders broke into his Columbus area home on Sept. 20. Needs' nose was broken and his pickup truck, a computer and credit cards were taken.
Reuters - U.S. employers unexpectedly cut more jobs in September than in August, underscoring the fragility of the economy's recovery from its worst recession in 70 years as businesses remain cautious about the future.
Reuters - Gasps and tears greeted the announcement on Friday that Chicago had lost its bid to host the 2016 Summer Games, as the city went from favorite to also-ran in the multibillion-dollar Olympics sweepstakes.
Reuters - The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog will head to Iran this weekend to pin down an Iranian pledge, made at talks with big powers on Thursday, to open a newly revealed uranium enrichment site to inspections. The Geneva meeting, which also yielded agreement on follow-up talks before the end of October, lowered tensions a notch in a protracted standoff over suspicions that Iran is secretly trying to develop nuclear weapons.
Reuters - Aid for thousands of survivors of an earthquake in Indonesia trickled in on Friday and international rescue teams set to work, but efforts were hampered by power blackouts and a shortage of heavy equipment.
Reuters - An Organization of American States mission returned to Honduras on Friday to start work on negotiating an end to a standoff triggered when President Manuel Zelaya was ousted and exiled in a military coup.
Reuters - An Israeli soldier held captive for the past three years by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas smiled briefly and looked healthy in a two-minute Hamas video handed over to Israel on Friday.
Reuters - Philippine authorities declared a state of calamity and evacuated 33,000 people from the east of the main island as a "super typhoon" bore down on Friday, a week after flash floods in and around Manila killed nearly 300 people.
AFP - Rio de Janeiro was named host of the 2016 Olympic Games on Friday as red-hot favourite Chicago, backed by US President Barack Obama, was handed a devastating, heart-breaking snub.
AFP - Quake-hit Indonesia appealed for foreign aid Friday as the stench of decomposing bodies hung over wrecked buildings where overwhelmed rescuers scrabbled for survivors.
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