Reuters - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden made a previously unannounced visit to Baghdad on Thursday to meet Iraqi leaders and U.S. military commanders just days after American troops withdrew from Iraqi towns and city centers.
AFP - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has arrived in Myanmar for difficult talks with its military junta as he seeks the release of political prisoners including Aung San Suu Kyi.
AP - Americans who refuse to buy affordable medical coverage could be hit with fines of more than $1,000 under a health care overhaul bill unveiled Thursday by key Senate Democrats looking to fulfill President Barack Obama's top domestic priority.
GOP, White House at odds on Sotomayor documents
(AP)
AP - A top Republican pressed for more information Thursday about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's ties to a Puerto Rican civil rights group he said took extreme positions on race, as the White House argued that the material was irrelevant to the judge's nomination.
AP - U.S. Marines suffered their first casualties of a massive new military campaign Thursday as they engaged in sporadic gunbattles along 55 miles of Taliban-controlled heartland in southern Afghanistan. One Marine was killed and several others were injured or wounded on the first full day of the assault, the largest military operation in Afghanistan since the fall of Taliban government in 2001.
AP - The future of Michael Jackson's children was thrown into question Thursday when his ex-wife emerged and won a delay in a custody hearing while she decides whether she wants to raise her two offspring.
AP - The investigation of Michael Jackson's death is widening as questions intensify about the drugs he took, the doctors who provided them and the actions of police.
Reuters - South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, who faces growing calls to quit over an extramarital affair, did not misuse public funds in trips he made to see his mistress, the state's top police official said on Thursday.
AP - Federal marshals seized disgraced financier Bernard Madoff's $7 million Manhattan penthouse on Thursday and forced his wife to move out and leave her possessions behind, including a fur coat she had asked to take with her, an official told The Associated Press.
