AP - Even for a nonconformist, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin defies political logic with her sudden, stunning announcement to leave office more than a year early.

AP - North Korea fired five ballistic missiles off its eastern coast Saturday, South Korea said, a violation of U.N. resolutions and an apparent message of defiance to the United States on its Independence Day.

AP - A top aide of Iran's supreme leader called the country's main opposition figure a U.S. agent and accused him of committing crimes against the nation in an editorial Saturday.

AP - The powerful sedative Diprivan was found in Michael Jackson's home, a law enforcement official said Friday as the city planned for a massive crowd at the singer's memorial service.

AP - A terrified rural South Carolina community hunkered down over the Fourth of July after the sheriff said a serial killer was on the loose, and longtime residents were reminded of a murderer who terrorized the town in the 1960s.

AP - Michelle Obama brings her superstar glamor to Moscow this weekend as she accompanies her husband on his summit with the Russian president.

AP - A blast outside a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan killed two American troops and wounded four others Saturday, a military spokesman said.

AP - Honduras' refusal to restore ousted President Manuel Zelaya despite an appeal by the top envoy for the Americas has put the impoverished nation on a collision course with the world community that could lead to its isolation.

AP - A civil rights group on whose board Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor served filed racial bias lawsuits over employment examinations that resemble a Connecticut case in which she ruled against white firefighters, documents released by the Senate show.

AP - Manny Ramirez returned to the big leagues as only he could.

Reuters - Sarah Palin, the brash, deeply conservative governor of Alaska who crashed onto the U.S. national political scene last year as the Republican candidate for U.S. vice president, announced abruptly on Friday she was resigning as governor.

Reuters - North Korea fired five ballistic missiles on Saturday, South Korea's defense ministry said, in an act of defiance toward the United States that further stoked regional tensions already high due to its nuclear test in May.

Reuters - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Friday rejected U.S. President Barack Obama's charge that he was mired in Cold War thinking, setting the scene for a stormy first meeting at a Moscow summit next week.

Reuters - The Organization of American States prepared to suspend Honduras on Saturday after a caretaker government refused to restore ousted President Manuel Zelaya and defiantly renounced the OAS charter in an apparent preemptive move.

Reuters - A U.S. drone aircraft fired missiles on Friday into Pakistan's South Waziristan region, killing 10 militants, officials said, ahead of an expected Pakistani military offensive in the area.

Reuters - A senior Iranian cleric warned on Friday that detained British embassy staff would face trial for their alleged role in post-election unrest, and EU countries summoned Iranian envoys to protest against the detentions.

AFP - North Korea test-fired five ballistic missiles, South Korean officials said, in an apparent message of defiance to the United States on the eve of its Independence Day holiday.

AFP - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was "deeply disappointed" after the chief of Myanmar's military junta on Saturday refused to let him meet pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.