Moderate Dems pivotal in Saturday health care vote

Suitably opaque, Section 2006 takes up only a few dozen lines in a sweeping health care bill that runs to 2,074 pages and mentions neither Sen. Mary Landrieu nor her state of Louisiana.  [Links] [Related]

Police: NC girl raped, killed on day she was taken

A 5-year-old North Carolina girl was raped and killed the same day she was taken from her home, according to an arrest warrant released Friday. Shaniya Davis was sexually assaulted and asphyxiated Nov. 10, the day her mother reported her missing from the trailer park where she was staying, according to the warrant. Authorities embarked on a nearly weeklong search that ended when the girl's body was found dumped off a rural road.  [Links] [Related]

Floods devastate UK Lake District, much of Ireland

Raging floods engulfed northern England's picturesque Lake District on Friday following the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in Britain, killing a police officer and trapping dozens in their swamped homes.  [Links] [Related]

Afghan police are weak link in security force

Underpaid, under-equipped and under-trained, Afghanistan's 93,000-member police force is the weak link in an ambitious security strategy to hand over defense of the country to Afghans so American and other foreign troops can go home.  [Links] [Related]

Tamiflu-resistant swine flu cluster reported in NC

Four North Carolina patients at a single hospital tested positive for a type of swine flu that is resistant to Tamiflu, health officials said Friday.  [Links] [Related]

Museum: Galileo's fingers, tooth are found

Two fingers and a tooth removed from Galileo Galilei's corpse in a Florentine basilica in the 18th century and given up for lost have been found again and will soon be put on display, an Italian museum director said Friday.  [Links] [Related]

Researcher: Faint writing seen on Shroud of Turin

A Vatican researcher has rekindled the age-old debate over the Shroud of Turin, saying that faint writing on the linen proves it was the burial cloth of Jesus.  [Links] [Related]

Winfrey: Prayer, careful thought influenced exit

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.  [Links] [Related]

Mich. police nab wrong-way driver twice in 3 days

Authorities in western Michigan arrested a person twice in three days for driving the wrong way down the highway Kalamazoo County deputies said they were alerted about 1:30 a.m. Friday after several people called 911 when they passed the unidentified driver traveling south on northbound U.S. 131.  [Links] [Related]

Jayson Williams plea hearing delayed indefinitely

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. State Superior Court Judge Edward M. Coleman indefinitely delayed a hearing in Somerville in which Williams was expected to plead guilty. A person with direct knowledge of the situation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of a gag order imposed by Coleman, told The Associated Press that the delay was partly because of travel problems Williams experienced getting to New Jersey from his home in South Carolina.  [Links] [Related]