AP - Cheesecake in hand, the police commissioner personally apologized Friday for the 50 or so mistaken, door-pounding visits that police have made to the home of a bewildered elderly Brooklyn couple in the past eight years.

AP - A federal judge on Friday rejected a legal settlement of more than a half-billion dollars for people sickened by ash and dust from the World Trade Center, saying the deal to compensate 10,000 police officers, firefighters and other laborers didn't contain enough money for the workers.

AP - Some interesting names in the Texas A&M-Utah State game.

AP - Pope Benedict XVI addresses Ireland on Saturday in a letter apologizing for the sex abuse scandal here — a message being watched closely by Catholics from Boston to Berlin to see if it also acknowledges decades of Vatican-approved cover-ups.

AFP - President Barack Obama said Friday Democrats were poised to make history after a century struggling for health care reform, as party leaders claimed momentum ahead of a vital weekend vote.

AP - A federal appeals court ruled Friday that Anna Nicole Smith's estate will get none of the more than $300 million the late Playboy model claimed a Texas billionaire to whom she was briefly married meant to leave her after he died.

AP - It's the financial equivalent of a high medal count at the Olympics or a seat on the U.N. Security Council — a triple-A credit rating, the seal of approval that lets investors know a country's bonds are safe.

AP - It was a bold response to skyrocketing health insurance premiums. President Barack Obama would give federal authorities the power to block unreasonable rate hikes.

Reuters - China on Friday said it was sending an envoy to Washington to try to ease trade frictions as its currency regime comes under fire, warning that threats from U.S. legislators could stifle room for progress.

AP - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton suggested Friday that the United States and Israel have found a way around the worst disagreement the two allies have faced in years while international diplomats set goals for new U.S.-backed peace talks aimed at establishing an independent Palestinian state.

AP - President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders lobbied intensively for historic health care legislation Friday, striving to resolve a last-minute dispute over Medicare while gaining another precious "yes" 48 hours ahead of a climactic vote.

AFP - The Middle East Quartet on Friday urged Israel to stop building settlements and set a bold target for a final deal with the Palestinians by 2012 as it tried to kickstart the stalled peace process.

AP - Octuplets mom Nadya Suleman could be kicked out of her Southern California home.

AP - One of the heaviest rainfalls since Haiti's Jan. 12 earthquake swamped homeless camps Friday, sweeping screaming residents into eddies of water, overflowing latrines and panicking thousands.

Reuters - Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives pushed undecided members for support and voiced growing confidence on Friday they will win a close vote on final passage of a sweeping healthcare overhaul.

AP - President Barack Obama described the stakes of this weekend's health care vote in stark terms Friday, using words uttered so rarely out of the White House that they seem all but banned: "If this vote fails."