Nation and World

MILWAUKEE (AP) — A lawsuit in Wisconsin is bringing a fresh challenge to the practice of paying for keywords on Google and other search engines to boost one company's link over a rival's.

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan expressed fear Friday that a large increase in foreign troops in Afghanistan could push militants across the border into its territory and called on the U.S. to factor in that concern as part of its new war strategy.

MOSCOW (AP) — Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev criticized Kremlin policies Friday and toyed with the ambitious idea of attempting a political comeback.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — South Carolina lawmakers plan to formally consider impeaching Gov. Mark Sanford for the first time next week, the chairman of the committee beginning that work said Friday.

BAGHDAD (AP) — A top aide to Iraq's Shiite spiritual leader on Friday urged the country's fractious political blocs to resolve a crisis over a key election law that threatens to delay national polls planned for January.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A teenager accused of killing a 9-year-old neighbor was sent to a mental hospital after her attorney said she showed signs of severe depression and anxiety.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic-controlled House voted Thursday to add more than $200 billion to the deficit to prevent steep Medicare payment cuts to doctors, a move Republicans denounced as a political payoff.

ANTAVILIAI, Lithuania (AP) — The austere building stands in the middle of a remote, thick forest surrounded by a high fence and numerous surveillance cameras.

NEW YORK (AP) — New York juries are often loath to impose the death penalty, even for terrorists.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York's top court on Thursday rejected a Christian legal group's challenge to some government benefits provided to gay couples legally married elsewhere and now living in New York.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California will face a nearly $21 billion budget gap over the next year and a half, extending a fiscal crisis that already has led to steep cuts to public schools, social services and health programs.

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union is about to pick its very first president, a post conjured up after years of tortuous political machination to give the bloc a unified voice on the world stage.

BEIRUT (AP) — An Iranian doctor who went public with reports of tortured protesters he treated at Tehran's most feared detention facility dies, amid conflicting reports of a heart attack, a car accident or suicide — raising opposition accusations that the 26-year-old was killed.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Space shuttle Atlantis closed in on the International Space Station on Wednesday for a high-flying linkup and supply drop.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon will investigate its procedures in light of the Fort Hood shooting rampage, looking at how all the military services keep a watch on potential problems in their ranks, officials said Tuesday.

BERLIN (AP) — Former SS sergeant Adolf Storms lived in Germany unnoticed for more than six decades after World War II until an Austrian university student last year came across his name while researching a 1945 massacre of Jewish forced laborers.

SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq (AP) — Kurdish political leaders threatened Tuesday to boycott January's national elections unless Kurdish areas receive more seats in parliament, throwing into doubt the vote which could determine how quickly U.S. troops can go home.

BERLIN (AP) — Two top leaders of a mostly ethnic Hutu militia were arrested in Germany Tuesday on suspicion of committing crimes against humanity in Congo.

CHIANG MAI, Thailand (AP) — Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Monday he was pressed by his advisers to attack Iran during the hostage crisis there more than 30 years ago but resisted because he feared 20,000 Iranians could have died.

ATLANTA (AP) — The nation's largest publisher of newspapers serving the gay and lesbian community has shut down.

TAGAB VALLEY, Afghanistan (AP) — Insurgents fired two rockets Monday into a crowded market northeast of Kabul where the head of French forces in Afghanistan was holding a meeting with tribal elders. The attack killed 12 Afghan civilians and wounded at least another 38, the French military said.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms abducted and killed at least 13 people in a village west of Baghdad, in what some described as revenge against Sunnis who helped fight al-Qaida, Iraqi officials said Monday.

VIENNA (AP) — Iranian technicians have moved highly sophisticated technical equipment into a previously secret uranium enrichment site in preparation for starting it up in 2011, the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a new report Monday.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A senior U.S. Air Force official said Monday he expects the force's involvement in the United Arab Emirates to continue and potentially expand.

NEW LONDON, Conn. (AP) — After drug giant Pfizer Inc. announced that it was opening a new research center here, city officials aggressively moved to acquire surrounding land for an economic development project — triggering an epic fight over eminent domain that reached the U.S. Supreme Court and ended with residents being forced from their homes.

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) — The Army psychiatrist accused in the fatal shootings at Fort Hood may be paralyzed from the waist down after being shot multiple times during the attack, his attorney told The Associated Press on Friday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — "Pingpong diplomacy" thawed relations between the United States and China in 1971. Can "baseball diplomacy" help do the same for the U.S. and Cuba?

LONDON (AP) — The diaries of a British reporter who risked his reputation to expose the horrors of Stalin's murderous famine in Ukraine were put on public display for the first time Friday.

GENEVA (AP) — Google Inc.'s unstoppable drive to map and photograph the world has run into an immovable object — Switzerland's strict tradition of personal privacy.

OTTAWA (AP) — The federal government argued before the Supreme Court Friday that Canadian courts do not have the right to order authorities to seek the repatriation of the youngest detainee held by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — A filing in U.S. District Court shows Ohio will switch to a one-drug approach to lethal injection executions, with a muscle injection available as a back up.

NEW YORK (AP) — Two former computer programmers for Bernard Madoff's investment firm were arrested Friday on charges they helped cover up the disgraced money manager's massive fraud for more than 15 years.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — World powers including the U.S., Russia and China are teaming up at sea to tackle the pirates plaguing Somalia's lawless coast, as a sharp increase in attacks has forced nations who may be rivals on land to make unlikely alliances.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A former astronaut pleaded guilty Tuesday to attacking a romantic rival in an airport parking lot after driving 1,000 miles from Houston to Orlando to confront her.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — A car bomb exploded outside a crowded market in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing at least 24 people in the latest attack by suspected militants apparently aimed at avenging an army offensive along the Afghan border.

PARIS (AP) — France's President Nicolas Sarkozy urged Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday to stay in power to keep hopes for Mideast peace alive.

PINE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) — A former student held a school administrator hostage for more than an hour Tuesday morning, then surrendered to police without firing a shot, officials said.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Defense and prosecution lawyers in the case of a 9-year-old Arizona boy charged with killing his father and another man want a new judge appointed so a plea deal doesn't fall through.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The man accused of shooting a Kansas abortion provider has confessed to the killing to The Associated Press, saying he has no regrets.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to block Tuesday's scheduled execution of sniper mastermind John Allen Muhammad.

BERLIN (AP) — Chancellor Angela Merkel and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev crossed a former fortified border on Monday to cheers of "Gorby! Gorby!" as a throng of grateful Germans recalled the night 20 years ago that the Berlin Wall gave way to their desire for freedom and unity.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Democratic-controlled House narrowly passed far-reaching health care legislation, handing President Barack Obama a hard-won victory on his chief domestic priority though the road ahead in the Senate promises to be rocky.

ATLANTA (AP) — At the height of the nationwide salmonella outbreak nearly a year ago, FBI agents raided two peanut plants and carried away boxes of evidence. FDA inspectors found roaches, mold and a leaky roof. Then, Congress revealed e-mails from the peanut company's top executive that seemed to suggest the pursuit of profits over ensuring public safety.

PARIS (AP) — Despite signs of an economic revival gathering pace around the globe, the millions of people laid off during the worst recession in 70 years are unlikely to see relief any time soon as joblessness is still climbing in many of the world's largest economies.

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) — Soldiers who witnessed the shooting rampage at Fort Hood that left 13 people dead reported that the gunman shouted "Allahu Akbar!" — an Arabic phrase for "God is great!" — before opening fire, the base commander said Friday.

NEW YORK (AP) — Consumers, looking to outfit themselves for cooler weather and enticed by an improving economy, spent a little more in October, handing the retail industry its second consecutive monthly sales gain after more than a year of declines.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Billed as a way for the government to put more fuel-efficient vehicles on highways, the popular $3 billion Cash for Clunkers program mostly involved swaps of old Ford or Chevrolet pickups for new ones that got only marginally better gas mileage, according to an analysis of new federal data by The Associated Press.

BERLIN (AP) — General Motors Co.'s decision to scrap the sale of European subsidiary Opel raised new uncertainty Wednesday over the unit's future, astonishing politicians in Germany and Russia and prompting workers to plan walkouts in protest.

WASHINGTON (AP) — JPMorgan Chase&Co. is paying more than $700 million to settle federal regulators' charges it made unlawful payments to friends of public officials to win municipal bond business in Jefferson County, Ala.

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — Cecelia Burnett and Ann Swanson had already set their wedding date. When they joined about 1,000 other gay marriage supporters for an election night party in a Holiday Inn ballroom, they hoped to celebrate the vote that would make it possible.