International Headlines

LONDON (AP) -- European and Asian stock markets rebounded Friday as expectations of a recovery on Wall Street prompted investors to scoop up battered financial and energy shares....

CORNWALLIS, Canada (AP) -- With the United States reevaluating strategy in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates is telling allies that additional U.S. forces planned for the war must be shared across the region taking the brunt of the fighting....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The CIA withheld information from the White House, Justice Department and Congress about the 2001 shooting down of a plane over Peru carrying an American missionary family, part of a yearslong cover-up of lethal violations in U.S. drug-interdiction procedures, according to a classified internal CIA report....

LONDON (AP) -- Madonna and Guy Ritchie were granted a preliminary decree of divorce Friday....

POTSDAM, Germany (AP) -- Germany is dropping its pursuit of a ban on Scientology after finding insufficient evidence of illegal activity, security officials said Friday. Domestic intelligence services will continue to monitor the group, officials said. The German branch of the Los Angeles-based Church of Scientology has been under observation by domestic intelligence services for more than a decade. Top security officials asked state governments in December to begin gathering informatio...

BAGHDAD (AP) -- Thousands of followers of a radical Shiite cleric protested a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security deal Friday, burning an effigy of President George W. Bush in the same square where Iraqis beat a toppled Saddam Hussein statue five years ago. Chanting and waving flags, Muqtada al-Sadr's followers filled Firdous Square to protest the pact that would allow American troops to stay for three more years....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Law enforcement officials bracing for the largest crowds in inaugural history are preparing far-reaching security - thousands of video cameras, sharpshooters, air patrols - to safeguard President-elect Barack Obama's swearing-in. People attending the ceremony and parade on Jan. 20 can expect to be searched by machines, security personnel or both. Precautions will range from the routine - magnetometers like those used at airports - to countersnipers trained to hit a ta...

RAYMONDVILLE, Texas (AP) -- A county prosecutor who brought indictments this week against Vice President Dick Cheney and others pounded his fist and shouted at the judge Friday during a routine hearing. Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra asked Presiding Judge Manuel Banales to recuse himself from the case, which alleges abuse at federally run prisons....

MIAMI (AP) -- A South Florida college student killed himself by overdosing on drugs in front of a live online audience as some computer users egged him on, some debated his method, and others tried to talk him out of it....

SOFIA, Bulgaria (AP) -- Archaeologists have unearthed an elaborately decorated 1,800-year-old chariot sheathed in bronze at an ancient Thracian tomb in southeastern Bulgaria, the head of the excavation said Friday. "The lavishly ornamented four-wheel chariot dates back to the end of the second century A.D.," Veselin Ignatov told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from the site, near the southeastern village of Karanovo....

CINCINNATI (AP) -- Rapper T.I. testified Friday that he believes the bullets fired at his entourage during a wild vehicle chase two years ago were meant for him. He took the witness stand in the trial of Hosea Thomas, 34, who is accused of firing the shot that killed Philant Johnson during a gun battle on Interstate 75....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Attorney General Michael Mukasey collapsed during a speech Thursday night and lost consciousness, a Justice Department official said....