Exit polls show President Leonel Fernandez could win a third term on Friday and capture enough votes to avoid a run-off.

A judicial probe into the assassination of a Roman Catholic lawyer in Northern Ireland reported Friday that it has lost sensitive computer data about the investigation.

A Venezuelan opposition leader is demanding that President Hugo Chavez explain accusations of close ties between his government and Colombian rebels.

Exit polls show that Dominican President Leonel Fernandez could secure a first-round electoral victory.

American experts are monitoring nuclear facilities in China's earthquake zone, officials said Friday, after France's nuclear watchdog reported that some had suffered minor damage.

For thoroughbreds in this U.S. Caribbean territory, being fast enough to win, place or show is a matter of life and death - losers often don't even make it off the racetrack grounds alive. More than 400 horses, many in perfect health, are killed each year by injection at a clinic behind the Hipodromo Camarero racetrack, said chief veterinarian Jose Garcia.

France criticized Myanmar's military junta on Friday for refusing to allow a French Navy ship with 1,500 tons of aid for victims of Cyclone Nargis to deliver food and medicine with small boats and helicopters.

A group of men posing as federal police agents helped six alleged drug-trafficking hit men escape from a Mexican prison Friday.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi led a bipartisan congressional delegation to Israel Friday to mark the 60th anniversary of Israel's founding.

Canadian energy officials Friday scrapped development of a nuclear reactor project to produce radioactive isotopes for the diagnoses of cancer and other illnesses, citing costs of the program.

After their daughter was born, Bi Kaiwei and his wife, Meilin, decided to adhere to China's one-child policy and its slogan, "Have fewer kids, live better lives."

Piles of broken concrete rise seven stories high, and a few buildings stand askew, knocked at odd angles. People cry out the names of missing relatives and rescue workers shout, "Is anyone there? Is anyone there?"

Osama bin Laden vowed Friday to fight Israel for the liberation of the Palestinians, claiming their cause is at the heart of al-Qaida's holy war with the West.

The official death toll nearly doubled to 78,000 from Myanmar's killer cyclone as heavy rains on Friday lashed much of the area stricken two weeks ago, further hampering relief efforts.

A top Cuban official said Friday that Raul Castro's government would consider loosening Internet restrictions on ordinary citizens newly allowed to purchase computers - but Washington's decades-old economic embargo makes it impossible.

One man describes a harrowing dash through a minefield, his pregnant wife in tow, as they raced to escape from the very rebels who were supposed to be protecting them.

More emergency food aid is on its way to Haiti.

In a May 11 story about Sudan severing ties with Chad, The Associated Press, relying on a state television report, erroneously reported the dollar value of a reward offered by the government for Darfur rebel leader Khalil Ibrahim.

Seven weeks after the presidential election, Zimbabwe finally set a runoff date Friday, saying longtime President Robert Mugabe and rival Morgan Tsvangirai will face off in a June 27 ballot that the opposition fears will be skewed by thuggery and fraud.

Leaders of Lebanon's U.S.-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition went to Qatar Friday for the highest-level talks since the country's political crisis began 18 months ago.

Iran angrily blamed the United States on Friday after at least three of its diplomats were wounded in a Baghdad shooting, saying the Americans are encouraging attacks on Iranians in Iraq.

Pope Benedict XVI has written a special prayer for Chinese Catholics who face "daily trials" in the officially atheistic country, the Vatican said Friday.

A handful of Russian doomsday cult members on Friday crawled out of the damp cave where they had holed up for months awaiting the end of the world after authorities removed two rotting corpses from their underground lair.

Pakistan's army lodged a formal protest Friday to "allied forces" in neighboring Afghanistan over a suspected U.S. missile strike this week that killed 14 people in a Pakistani border village.