AP - President Barack Obama will have scant time to rest up from his eight-day Asia trip. On Saturday, two days after his return to Washington, the Senate plans a make-or-break vote on his hard-fought plan to overhaul the nation's health care system. Obama also confronts a difficult choice on strategy and troop levels in Afghanistan, which will be criticized no matter what he decides.

SPACE.com - It may be the mother lode of all bad timing: Atlantis shuttle astronaut Randy Bresnik is stuck at the International Space Station, hundreds of miles from his pregnant wife Rebecca, who is expected to give birth to a baby girl as early as today.

AP - The Salvation Army plans to serve 10,000 free dinners across the city this Thanksgiving — meals planned by a star chef, cooked by one of New York's ritziest caterers and cleaned up by employees of one of Wall Street's most vilified financial firms.

AP - The Obama administration is shifting the focus of its Iran policy from talk to sanctions, but the prospect of winning early international support for toughened new penalties appears dim.

AP - The Pacific resort island of Saipan was reeling Saturday from one of the most violent attacks in its history, when a gunman killed five people, including two small children and himself, in a rampage that ended at a World War II historical site.

AP - The driver of a Miley Cyrus tour bus was killed Friday when the bus overturned, but the 16-year-old "Hannah Montana" star wasn't on board, Virginia State Police said.

AP - Sometime into his long detention by China's feared state security agents, American geologist Xue Feng had something to show U.S. consular officials on their monthly visit. He rolled up his sleeve, revealing the burns where his interrogators pressed lit cigarettes into his arm.

AP - Two days before shipping off to war, Marine Pfc. Jesse Sheets sat inside a trailer in the Mojave Desert, his gaze fixed on a computer that flashed a rhythmic pulse of contrasting images.

Reuters - One of three wavering U.S. Senate Democrats said on Friday he would vote to start the chamber's healthcare debate, bolstering the chances for a broad reform bill one day before its first crucial test.

Reuters - India's prime minister and U.S. President Barack Obama meet next week to strengthen ties, with the emerging Asian power increasingly playing a bigger role on global issues such as climate change and trade.

AFP - A bruised but smiling Manny Pacquiao enjoyed a hero's welcome as he returned home to the Philippines on Friday, with masses of people taking to the streets and hailing him as the best boxer of all time.

Reuters - As U.S. health officials struggle to vaccinate tens of millions of Americans against the pandemic of swine flu, some are looking regretfully at one easy way to instantly double or triple the number of doses available -- by using an immune booster called an adjuvant.

Reuters - Some big Goldman Sachs Group Inc shareholders have asked the U.S. bank to cut what could be the biggest bonuses in its history to pass more profit onto investors, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

AP - A 5-year-old North Carolina girl was raped and killed the same day she was taken from her home, according to an arrest warrant released Friday. Shaniya Davis was sexually assaulted and asphyxiated Nov. 10, the day her mother reported her missing from the trailer park where she was staying, according to the warrant. Authorities embarked on a nearly weeklong search that ended when the girl's body was found dumped off a rural road.

AP - A 20-year-old top South Korean model who was a fashion week regular in New York, Milan and Paris has been found hanged in her Paris apartment, a police official said Friday.