AP - A suicide squad detonated bombs at a newly fortified prison, police headquarters and two other locations late Saturday, killing at least 30 people in the largest city of the southern Taliban heartland.

AP - President Barack Obama says he wants projects helping specific states yanked from the health care bill Congress is writing. Democratic senators, being senators, beg to differ.

AP - A coalition led by Iraq's prime minister held a comfortable lead Saturday in the crucial contest for the nation's capital, bolstering his chances in an election deciding who will lead the country as U.S. forces go home.

AP - A Colorado woman has been detained in Ireland in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist whose sketch offended many Muslims, a U.S. official said Saturday.

AP - The Vatican on Saturday denounced what it called aggressive attempts to drag Pope Benedict XVI into the spreading scandals of pedophile priests in his German homeland. It also insisted that church confidentiality doesn't prevent bishops from reporting abuse to police.

AP - Iran says it has dismantled several U.S.-backed cyber warfare networks that were gathering information on nuclear scientists and provoking unrest in the country.

AP - The Obama administration unveiled its plan Saturday to radically change his predecessor's No Child Left Behind law in hopes of replacing an accountability system that in the last decade has tagged more than a third of schools as failing and created a hodgepodge of sometimes weak academic standards among states.

AP - Students have wrapped ribbons around 8,000 sunflowers to hand out at a memorial service for Chelsea King, the 17-year-old girl whose murder has shaken her community and spurred calls for legal changes in how child sex offenders are treated.

AP - America is springing forward.

AP - Mike Leach sat across from his accuser Saturday as Craig James gave sworn testimony in the former coach's lawsuit against Texas Tech.

Reuters - A Taliban suicide bomber targeting security forces killed at least 11 people on Saturday, Pakistani police said, part of a renewed push against the state after one of the biggest security crackdowns in years.

Reuters - Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki held a wide lead on Saturday in early results from Baghdad, the major prize in a tight election race that Iraqis hope will bring stability after years of sectarian conflict.

Reuters - Irish police have released three of the seven people arrested on Tuesday in connection with an alleged plot to murder a Swedish cartoonist over a drawing depicting the Prophet Mohammad with the body of a dog.

Reuters - The Vatican rallied around Pope Benedict Saturday, dismissing suggestions he had tried to cover up priestly child abuse in Germany.

AFP - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's bid to retain his job gained steam on Saturday as early results put him ahead in the capital, while rival blocs began jostling over the formation of a government.

AFP - A series of explosions in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Saturday has killed at least 27 people and injured another 52, the province's senior health official told AFP.