AP - Clashes between police and alleged militants left 10 more people dead Friday in Russia's volatile North Caucasus, even as stunned residents laid flowers in a square where a suicide car bombing killed 17 people and wounded more than 140 only a day ago.

AFP - California firefighters were grimly searching smoldering ruins Friday after a huge gas pipeline explosion triggered an inferno killing four people, amid fears the toll will rise.

AP - Fidel Castro says his comments about Cuba's communist economic model were misinterpreted by a visiting American journalist.

AFP - In far northeastern Badakhshan province, thousands of people gathered outside a small NATO base in the capital Fayzabad, where they threw rocks at the gate and burned an American flag, police said.

Reuters - The Dow and S&P 500 gained modestly on Friday, led higher as energy shares were boosted by a jump in oil prices, but weak tech stocks and light volume capped gains.

AP - Iran's president intervened to secure the release of Sarah Shourd, one of three Americans jailed for more than 13 months, in part because of her gender, a news agency reported Friday.

AP - Hundreds of sex abuse victims have come forward in Belgium with harrowing accounts of molestation by Catholic clergy that reportedly led to at least 13 suicides and affected children as young as two, a special commission said Friday.

AP - The Greek government pledged Friday to radically overhaul loss-making state rail company OSE, as official data showed efforts to cut the country's bloated budget deficit remained on track, if slightly asthmatic.

AFP - Teams from the Central African Republic's electoral commission have begun deploying throughout the country to prepare for a census that will begin on September 22, the organisation announced Friday.

AP - Patients jammed rudimentary clinics and health workers in surgical masks sprayed anti-bacterial solution on muddy paths as the government struggled to contain a cholera epidemic that has killed nearly 800 Nigerians in two months.

Reuters - Nokia has hired Stephen Elop, a Canadian Microsoft executive with Silicon Valley credentials, to replace its embattled chief executive and renew its drive to compete with Apple.

AFP - An independent Australian politician whose support was crucial to keeping Prime Minister Julia Gillard in power Friday knocked back an offer to become a minister in her minority government.

AP - The Mexican police officers who arrested infamous drug suspect Edgar Valdez Villarreal, alias "La Barbie," did not initially know who they had caught, according to a booking report obtained Thursday.

Reuters - Democrats in Congress are distancing themselves from President Barack Obama's push to let taxes rise for the wealthiest Americans, fearing it will further harm them in November's mid-term elections.