AP - Suitably opaque, Section 2006 takes up only a few dozen lines in a sweeping health care bill that runs to 2,074 pages and mentions neither Sen. Mary Landrieu nor her state of Louisiana.

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 - Raging floods engulfed northern England's picturesque Lake District on Friday following the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in Britain, killing a police officer and trapping dozens in their swamped homes.

AP - Underpaid, under-equipped and under-trained, Afghanistan's 93,000-member police force is the weak link in an ambitious security strategy to hand over defense of the country to Afghans so American and other foreign troops can go home.

AP - Four North Carolina patients at a single hospital tested positive for a type of swine flu that is resistant to Tamiflu, health officials said Friday. The cases reported at Duke University Medical Center over six weeks make up the biggest cluster seen so far in the U.S.

AP - Two fingers and a tooth removed from Galileo Galilei's corpse in a Florentine basilica in the 18th century and given up for lost have been found again, a Florence museum said Friday.

AP - A Vatican researcher has rekindled the age-old debate over the Shroud of Turin, saying that faint writing on the linen proves it was the burial cloth of Jesus.

AP - Holding back tears, Oprah Winfrey told her studio audience Friday that she would end her show in 2011 after a quarter-century on the air, saying prayer and careful thought led her to her decision.

AP - Retired NBA star Jayson Williams will not be in a New Jersey courtroom Friday to enter a plea in the 2002 shooting death of a hired driver.

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 overhaul one day before its first crucial test.

Reuters - The pace of job losses slowed in many U.S. states in October, and the unemployment rate slipped in hard-hit Michigan, the Labor Department said on Friday, hinting the recession may be easing in some areas.

Reuters - Women in the United States should start cervical cancer screening at age 21 and most do not need an annual Pap smear, according to new guidelines issued on Friday that aim to reduce the risk of unnecessary treatment.

Reuters - The pandemic of swine flu may be hitting a peak in the United States, health experts said on Friday.

Reuters - A suicide bomber in southwestern Afghanistan killed 17 people Friday, and an Afghan lawmaker escaped a separate blast on the outskirts of Kabul but five of his bodyguards were killed, officials said.

Reuters - Senior officials from six world powers said on Friday they were disappointed Iran had not accepted proposals intended to delay its potential to make nuclear bombs, and urged Tehran to reconsider.

AFP - Incoming EU president Herman Van Rompuy kept a low profile Friday as the 27-nation bloc's leaders faced flak for picking him and a little-known British peer to lead a revamped Europe on the world stage.

AFP - Major world powers expressed disappointment Friday that Iran has "not responded positively" to a plan for resolving the standoff over its nuclear programme or agreed to new talks.