AP - Partial vote results in Iraq's historic election released Thursday showed a tight contest between the nation's prime minister and a secular challenger during a chaotic count that was marred by accusations of fraud.

AP - A series of strong aftershocks from last month's devastating quake rocked Chile on Thursday as a new president was sworn into office and immediately urged coastal residents to move to higher ground in case of a tsunami.

AP - Americans regained more of their shrunken wealth last quarter, mainly because the healing economy boosted stock portfolios. But the gain was less than in the previous two quarters.

AP - House Democratic leaders on Thursday worked to rally their rank-and-file members around last-minute agreements on insurance taxes and prescription drug coverage that could move President Barack Obama's overhaul of the nation's health care system a step closer to reality.

AP - Serious street clashes erupted between rioting youths and police in central Athens Thursday as some 30,000 people demonstrated during a nationwide strike against the cash-strapped government's austerity measures.

AP - Kansas City's school superintendent said Thursday the plan to shutter nearly half the district's schools, while "painful," will move forward quickly so that all the closures will be complete by fall.

AP - Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim is the first man from a developing nation to become the world's richest person — a shift that underlines the loosening of America and Europe's stranglehold on the top spots in the billionaires' club.

AP - Without a TV show to do every night, Conan O'Brien is taking his act on the road.

AP - Album lovers may rejoice a little at last: a British court says Pink Floyd, purveyor of iTunes-unfriendly concept records, cannot be unbundled.

AP - Pro Football Hall of Famer and former television actor Merlin Olsen has died. He was 69.

Reuters - Chile's navy lifted a tsunami warning for the country's coast after strong aftershocks shook the capital Santiago on Thursday, following the swearing in ceremony for new President Sebastian Pinera.

Reuters - Police clashed with stone-throwing youths in Athens on Thursday as tens of thousands of strikers protested against draconian cutbacks aimed at pulling Greece out of a debt crisis shaking the euro zone.

Reuters - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden called on Thursday for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks to start without delay despite Palestinian insistence that Israel first cancel a settlement project condemned by Washington.

Reuters - A cross-sectarian, secularist alliance headed by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi is ahead in two Iraqi provinces north of Baghdad, early results from the country's electoral commission showed Thursday.

Reuters - Ukraine's new prime minister, Mykola Azarov, declaring state coffers were empty, promised on Thursday to meet all obligations to the International Monetary Fund and push through a realistic 2010 budget.

Reuters - The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell only slightly last week, indicating that rapid job growth would probably continue to elude the economy for a while.

AFP - Strong aftershocks and a tsunami alert rocked Chile and rattled nerves Thursday as rightwing billionaire Sebastian Pinera was sworn in as the new president of the quake-hit nation.

AFP - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a public apology to the visiting US vice president on Thursday, hoping to defuse a row over settlements that prompted a Palestinian boycott of indirect peace talks.