AP - Cell phones are becoming more useful devices for listening to music.

AP - Microsoft Corp. is scheduled to stop selling its Windows XP operating system to retailers and major computer makers Monday, despite protests from a slice of PC users who don’t want to be forced into using XP’s successor, Vista.

AP - Driving with one hand on the wheel and the other on a cell phone is no longer an option for Washington state drivers.

AP - Former Intel Corp. Chairman Andy Grove has a knack for sensing when circumstances should force changes at a company or an industry and how to respond.

AP - Severe storms with strong winds swept through the Plains on Friday, forcing swimmers practicing for U.S. Olympic trials in Omaha to flee pools and run for cover, killing two teenagers in Iowa, and knocking out power to thousands.

AP - A heroic effort by hundreds of townspeople, volunteers and National Guardsmen to hold back the Mississippi River failed Friday undone by a burrowing muskrat.

AP - The National Rifle Association sued the city of San Francisco on Friday to overturn its ban on handguns in public housing, a day after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a handgun ban in the nation’s capital.

AP - The goal to raise levees and build large-scale flood defenses around this flood-torn city could be delayed indefinitely because of congressional demands that Louisiana chip in $1.8 billion to the effort over three years.

AP - Richard “Dickie” Scruggs, who became one of the wealthiest civil lawsuit attorneys in the country by taking on tobacco, asbestos and insurance companies, was sentenced Friday to five years in prison for conspiring to bribe a judge.

AP - Cathy Campbell did a double-take and tapped the brakes when she spotted what appeared to be a pointy-edged box lying in the road just ahead.

AP - North Korea destroyed the most visible symbol of its nuclear weapons program Friday in a sign of its commitment to stop making plutonium for atomic bombs.

AP - Paramilitary police and bands of ruling party militants patrolled Zimbabwe’s capital and marshals led voters to polling stations Friday for an internationally discredited presidential runoff held in an atmosphere of intimidation.

AP - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says U.S. plans to deploy missile defense sites in Europe will hurt European security.

AP - Baghdad hasn’t been this quiet in years. But the respite from bloodshed comes at a high price. Up to 20 feet high in some sections.

AP - The gray cooling tower stands 60 feet above North Korea’s main nuclear reactor complex, the most visible symbol of its atomic weapons program.

AP - Zimbabwe’s one-candidate presidential runoff is already a footnote, with the world looking beyond Friday’s electoral charade to how longtime leader Robert Mugabe can be pushed toward real democracy.

AP - Gaza militants fired two rockets into southern Israel on Thursday, further straining a shaky, week-old truce as Israel kept vital Gaza border crossings closed in response.

AP - After months of stalling, North Korea offered a glimpse of its secretive nuclear program Thursday and was promptly rewarded by President Bush with an easing of trade sanctions and a move to take the communist state off the U.S. terrorism blacklist.

AP - A suicide bomber attacked a meeting of pro-government Sunni sheiks west of Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 23 people, including three U.S. Marines. At least 18 more people died in a car bombing in the northern city of Mosul.

AP - The government ruled Thursday that an 11-year-old rape victim would be allowed to have an abortion in Romania, dismissing the opposition of 20 church groups.

AP - It was less than a year ago that Iraqis poured into the streets in a rare show of unity and celebration after the national soccer team won the prestigious Asian Cup.

AP - Gunmen killed a top federal police official and his bodyguard Thursday as they ate lunch in Mexico City, the latest attack against authorities waging a nationwide battle against drug cartels.

Reuters - Zimbabweans vote in a one-sided
presidential run-off on Friday after President Robert Mugabe
defied mounting world condemnation and calls to postpone an
election which the opposition says is a farce.

AP - Both Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain reacted cautiously Thursday after President Bush announced easing economic sanctions against North Korea, a world troublespot one of them will inherit after the next presidential inauguration in January.

AP - Violence-wracked Zimbabwe needs United Nations peacekeepers to help prepare the way for new elections, the country’s opposition leader said in a call from his haven at the Dutch Embassy.

AP - A roadside bomb killed three American soldiers and an interpreter north of Baghdad, the U.S. military said Wednesday, and Iraqi police reported 14 Shiite gunmen were arrested after fighting south of the capital.

AP - Coalition airstrikes killed 22 militants who were attacking two towns in eastern Afghanistan, and explosions killed two more foreign soldiers in the south, officials said Wednesday.

AP - Dozens of scared children filed silently into the bare room, their eyes on the cracks in the floor. One by one, in low voices, they told of being tortured by the Kenyan army because they were suspected of aiding rebels. They told of being beaten and made to shake hands with corpses. They told of being forced to crawl through barbed wire tunnels and of genitals squeezed by pliers.

AP - A water lily painting by Claude Monet sold for more than $80 million Tuesday, breaking the auction record for the French impressionist artist, Christie’s said.

AFP - Asian and Middle Eastern investors are to play leading roles in recapitalising Barclays, which Wednesday announced a share issue to raise about 4.5 billion pounds.

AP - The militant group Hamas said it remains committed to a cease-fire with Israel, but will not act as Israel’s “police force” in confronting militants who breach the truce.

AP - Mexico agreed Tuesday to extradite a top leader of a Tijuana-based drug cartel to the U.S., dismissing a judge’s opinion that it would mean trying him on the same charges twice.

AFP - Southern African leaders met Wednesday for talks on the Zimbabwe crisis as President Robert Mugabe indicated he was open to negotiations with the opposition, but only after this week’s run-off election.

AFP - Asian cities need help to cope with an unprecedented period of urbanisation, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said Wednesday, stressing that their future prosperity is at stake.

AP - Seven indigenous Maori tribes signed New Zealand’s largest-ever settlement Wednesday over grievances arising from 19th century losses of lands, forests and fisheries during European settlement of the country.

AP - Barack Obama said Tuesday that evangelical leader James Dobson was “making stuff up” when he accused the presumed Democratic presidential nominee of distorting the Bible.

AP - House Democrats failed Tuesday to resurrect a bill to punish price gouging at the gas pump, while maneuvering to block Republican attempts to expand offshore drilling, an idea gaining in popularity amid $4-a-gallon gas prices.

AP - One of the girls who became pregnant at Gloucester High School this year denied Tuesday there was any pact among them to have children, saying instead they decided to help each other make the best of their situations.

AP - U.S. consumer confidence fell unexpectedly sharply in June, sinking to its lowest level in more than 16 years, according to a private industry group.

AP - Palestinian militants on Tuesday fired three homemade rockets into southern Israel, the first such attack since a cease-fire between Israel and Gaza militants took effect last week.

AP - A massive foreclosure rescue bill overwhelmingly cleared a key Senate test Tuesday, drawing broad support from Democrats and Republicans alike.

AP - The swollen Mississippi River burst through yet another levee Tuesday, not endangering any towns but proving to anxious Midwesterners that the high water is still a threat.

AP - Fire crews joined aircraft from neighboring states Tuesday to battle hundreds of lightning-caused wildfires across Northern California.

AP - As Barack Obama broadens his outreach to evangelical voters, one of the movement’s biggest names, James Dobson, accuses the likely Democratic presidential nominee of distorting the Bible and pushing a “fruitcake interpretation” of the Constitution.

AP - Don Imus, responding to criticism about racial remarks on his radio program, said on the air Tuesday he was trying to “make a sarcastic point” about unfair treatment of blacks in the criminal justice system but had been misunderstood.

AP - The elderly fear breaking a hip when they fall, but a government study indicates that hitting their head can also have deadly consequences: Brain injuries account for half of all deaths from falls.

AP - Facebook Inc.’s quest to lure more advertisers to its popular online hangout is getting an assist from Visa Inc.’s marketing machine.

AP - Defending champion Venus Williams scraped through a tight first set and then pulled away for a 7-6 (5), 6-1 victory over British teenager Naomi Cavaday to begin her bid for a fifth Wimbledon title.

AP - More than 840 wildfires sparked by an “unprecedented” lightning storm are burning a swath of Northern California, alarming the governor and requiring the help of firefighters from Nevada and Oregon.

AP - As towns upriver watched the Mississippi River slowly begin to recede, a few farther south focused on holding on for a few more days furiously filling sandbags and keeping watch over saturated levees struggling to hold back the flooded river.

AP - A U.S. Supreme Court decision paving the way for a 670-mile federal fence along the U.S.-Mexico border drew swift criticism from environmentalists, who promised to make another legal stand in Texas.

AP - The story made headlines almost immediately: High school girls in this New England fishing town had made a pact to get pregnant. Now the account is under fire. The city’s mayor on Monday debunked the pact theory originally stated by the high school principal.

AP - A man whose life was turned upside-down by a wrongful arrest and weeks in jail should have been given access to a lawyer sooner so he could have shown the arrest was erroneous, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Monday.

AP - A man who led police to the charred remains of his two children was charged with capital murder on Monday.

AP - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is asking California members to join the effort to amend that state’s constitution to define marriage as being between a man and a woman.

AP - The third trial of an alleged member of a swingers club accused of forcing children into sex shows was postponed Monday amid allegations that the foster father to the young victims molested other children.

AP - An autistic man who could barely speak and had wandered off without medicine for his transplanted kidney likely had just hours to live when he was found after a week in the woods, a doctor said.

AP - These days, everyone’s feeling the pain at the pump, but for Houston’s lowest-paid school district employees who make as little as $15,000 a year some relief may be on the way.

AP - Broadcom Corp. co-founder Henry Samueli pleaded guilty Monday to lying to the Securities and Exchange Commission as it probed stock option backdating at the chip maker.

AP - Movie ticketing and entertainment site Fandango Inc. said Monday it has acquired Movies.com from Walt Disney Co. for an undisclosed amount.

AP - The Supreme Court intervened Monday in a lawsuit by an Internet service provider accusing AT&T of anti-competitive practices.

AP - Softbank Corp., the carrier that won the coveted right to sell the iPhone in Japan, said Monday that Apple Inc.’s device will sell for $215 comparable to the marked-down U.S. price for the hit gadget.

AP - In the second grade, James Silva didn’t just play “Mario” and “Zelda” on his Nintendo but drew pictures of new levels and cooked up ideas for future games. While other kids dreamed of becoming an astronaut or president, he felt destined to be a video game designer.

AP - Facebook Inc.’s quest to lure more advertisers to its popular online hangout is getting an assist from Visa Inc.’s marketing machine.

AP - The PlayStation Portable has been around for three years, but the machine you might buy today is far different from the one you’d get in 2005. Sony is continually tinkering with the thing in big ways (introducing a lighter, slimmer model in 2007) and small (any number of regularly issued firmware updates).

AP - Virgin Mobile USA is introducing a plan with unlimited calling for $79.99 per month, helping feed the price-cutting frenzy that has washed over the cellular carriers this year.

TechWeb - InformationWeek - Linux kernel developers issued a statement saying binary drivers cannot be viewed as an acceptable alternative to open source drivers.

Reuters - Google Inc was named on Monday in
a trade secrets lawsuit alleging that the company’s business
software unit copied a tiny start-up’s tool for moving
customers off of Microsoft software onto Google’s.

PC World - Managed Objects is adding social networking capabilities to make its configuration management database system more…

PC Magazine - Almost since the Wii was announced, eager Star Wars aficionados have imagined the Wii remote’s implications for serving as a lightsaber. LucasArts employees have constantly teased and hinted at something being in the works, and now it looks like we finally have an answer, not to mention a release window.

AP - Broadcom Corp. co-founder Henry Samueli has pleaded guilty to lying to the Securities and Exchange Commission as it probed stock option backdating at the chip maker.

AP - Movie ticketing and entertainment site Fandango Inc. said Monday it has acquired Movies.com from Walt Disney Co. for an undisclosed amount.

AP - The Supreme Court intervened Monday in a lawsuit by an Internet service provider accusing AT&T of anti-competitive practices.

AP - Softbank Corp., the carrier that won the coveted right to sell the iPhone in Japan, said Monday that Apple Inc.’s device will sell for $215 comparable to the marked-down U.S. price for the hit gadget.

AP - In the second grade, James Silva didn’t just play “Mario” and “Zelda” on his Nintendo but drew pictures of new levels and cooked up ideas for future games. While other kids dreamed of becoming an astronaut or president, he felt destined to be a video game designer.

PC World - New online services from FindHow.com, Slingpage, and Scribd.

PC World - Net-powered devices like the Amazon Kindle and the Dash Express represent the next big wave in mobile gadgetry. But be prepared for a bumpy ride.

Reuters - Mobile phones under development
by Google Inc and its partners face slipping delivery
schedules, with the first phones not likely to arrive until
late 2008, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

PC World - A group of Linux kernel developers issued a statement decrying closed-source drivers and modules on Monday.

PC Magazine - The easy-to-use DocuMate 150 and 515 pack a powerful software package to improve image quality.

PC World - Managed Objects is adding social networking capabilities to make its configuration management database system more…