Reuters - NATO on Friday asked Kosovo Albanians to give Western powers more time to steer their independence from Serbia through the United Nations, but admitted the project was in trouble.

Rasmussen Reports - Among the major candidates seeking the GOP Presidential nomination, former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson is viewed as politically conservative by more voters than anybody else. That's true among all voters and also among Republican voters. It's a key factor in why Thompson is currently doing so well in the race for the Republican Presidential nomination.

AP - President Bush's decision to spare former vice presidential aide I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby from going to prison — but not pardoning him — may have been an attempt to have it both ways. If so, it appears to have proved only partially successful.

Bloomberg - July 2 (Bloomberg) -- Republican presidential candidate John McCain is firing staff and cutting the salaries of campaign advisers after failing to raise as much money as he expected in the first six months of this year.

AP - A man with a large knife was arrested Wednesday outside presidential hopeful Barack Obama's hotel in southeast Iowa, police said.

AFP - Russia issued a veiled threat on Wednesday to deploy rockets in its Kaliningrad region bordering the European Union if the United States built a missile defence shield in central Europe.

AP - A long day of high-level negotiations over the state budget ended without a deal Friday, with 24,000 state workers slated to go on unpaid furlough Monday if no agreement is reached over the weekend.

AP - Not yet a 2008 candidate, Fred Thompson energized young Republicans with a speech Saturday that was heavy on rhetoric and short on policy pronouncements. He branded Democrats as 'the party of despair.'

AP - For Barack Obama, the millions of dollars he's raised can't quite paper over the nagging doubts and growing pains.

Reuters - The European Union has warned Morocco of a near certainty of terrorist attacks in the North African country and urged more security at Western embassies and tourism sites, a newspaper said on Monday.

AP - The former operations officer for the U.N. anti-poverty agency in North Korea is a whistleblower who should be protected from retaliation, the author of the U.N. whistleblower protection policy said Monday.

AP - The campaign of presidential hopeful John Edwards has a ready answer for all the criticism about his expensive haircuts and expansive home: A man can be wealthy and care about the poor, too.

AP - While many in Congress are pushing President Bush to alter course in Iraq by September if not sooner, his new status report on the war strongly implies that the administration believes its military strategy will take many more months to meet its goals.

AP - A U.N. inquiry has identified people who may have been involved in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and is investigating new information about the buyers of a van used in the bombing, the chief investigator said Thursday.

Reuters - Russia sees no point in joining discussions about a new resolution on Kosovo in the United Nations unless the draft is radically changed, Interfax news agency quoted a senior diplomat as saying on Friday.

Reuters - A U.N.-led probe of an apparent ground and air attack on a disputed gorge controlled by the former Soviet republic of Georgia reached no conclusion on who was to blame, in a report published on Friday.

AP - The Food and Drug Administration is giving workers more than $8 million in bonuses to keep them from defecting to pharmaceutical and other regulated industries, at the same time the agency is being pressed to spend more on food and drug safety.

AP - Barack Obama says people are sure to love him once they get to know him. For now, though, Democrats seem to love Hillary Rodham Clinton more, so Obama is trying to turn heads with select jabs at his chief rival.

AP - Taking a page from MeetUp.com and other online organizing pioneers, supporters of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton will host 400 house parties to watch her square off with her Democratic rivals in Monday's presidential debate.

Reuters - Brazil signaled tough talks ahead to save a global trade deal on Wednesday, saying last-ditch compromise proposals leaned too heavily in favor of rich countries.

Reuters - More women than men have a favorable opinion of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, but many female voters have negative feelings about her, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll released on Thursday.

AP - Fast-food waitress Fawn Townsend of Raleigh, N.C., knows exactly what she is going to do if her salary goes up with Tuesday's increase in the federal minimum wage: start saving for a car so she can find a second job to make ends meet.

AP - Barack Obama could have lived anywhere. He was born in Hawaii, had family in Kenya, worked in New York and went to school in California and Massachusetts.

AP - THE RACE: Support for Republican, Democratic candidates in the presidential races in Florida

Reuters - Britain and France softened a U.N. resolution on Tuesday that would authorize up to 26,000 troops and police in Darfur by dropping a threat of "further measures" against Sudanese obstructing peace efforts.

AP - Sen. John McCain's advertising consultants have resigned from his presidential campaign, the latest in a rash of staff shake-ups in recent weeks.

AP - A dramatic increase in attacks on aid convoys in Darfur is hampering the world's largest humanitarian operation, and some 170,000 people are now out of reach of food aid because of the violence, the United Nations' World Food Programme said Wednesday.

AP - Crustless peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, a way to move sideways on a swing, a technique for exercising cats using a laser pointer — these are among the inventions patented in the United States over the years.

AP - Democrats will nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton for president in 2008 and Barack Obama will be her running mate, former Republican House Speaker Newt Gingrich predicts.

AP - The United Nations asked Friday for $129 million to educate tens of thousands of Iraqi children who fled to neighboring countries to escape Iraq's violence.

Bloomberg - July 30 (Bloomberg) -- Prime Minister Gordon Brown will call for a push to secure a new world trade accord and steps to end the conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan during talks today with President George W. Bush.