AP - Mike Dunleavy and the Los Angeles Clippers parted company for good Tuesday, barely a month after he relinquished his head coaching duties to focus solely on being general manager.

AP - Suspected militants armed with grenades attacked the offices of a Christian aid group helping earthquake survivors in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing six employees and wounding several others, police and the organization said.

Reuters - Preliminary results of Iraq's parliamentary election, a vote seen as a litmus test of its young democracy, are likely to be released by Thursday, a United Nations official said Wednesday.

AP - Israel's new plan to build 1,600 apartments for Jews in Palestinian-claimed east Jerusalem overshadowed Vice President Joe Biden's visit to the West Bank on Wednesday.

Reuters - Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Wednesday he believed Britain would maintain its coveted top credit rating and announced a pay freeze for senior civil servants and military officers to help tame a record deficit.

AP - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates raised the possibility Wednesday that some of the U.S. forces involved in the Afghanistan surge could leave the country before President Barack Obama's announced July 2011 date to begin withdrawal.

AP - Americans have come to detest Congress ever more deeply as it nears the end of a nasty fight over health care. But more than half still back President Barack Obama, a bright spot for a Democratic Party counting on its leader to help stave off expected losses in elections this fall.

AFP - A car bomb killed five people in Afghanistan on Wednesday, as the Iranian president and the defence secretary of Iran's arch-foe, the United States, paid duelling visits to the war-torn country.

Reuters - U.S. safety regulators and Toyota dispatched teams on Tuesday to inspect a Prius that sped out of control on a California freeway a day earlier, as the automaker struggled to reassure consumers shaken by its recall crisis.

Reuters - The Israeli military called off a raid in Palestinian territory after a soldier posted details, including the time and place, on social networking website Facebook, Israel's Army Radio reported Wednesday.

Reuters - Canada's parliamentary restaurant will be serving seal meat on Wednesday in a gesture of defiance aimed at a European Union ban on imports of seal products.

Reuters - U.S. marriages last longer than unions where couples live together outside matrimony, the Centers for Disease Control reported on Tuesday.

Reuters - "O Canada," the country's national anthem, has included the line, "True patriot love in all thy sons' command," for nearly 100 years.

Reuters - The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on Thursday banned men in the Gaza Strip from working in women's hair salons, vowing to arrest and try offenders.