Reuters - China has overtaken Japan to become the world's second-largest economy, the fruit of three decades of rapid growth that has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.

AFP - Thousands of Bangladeshi garment workers who stitch clothes for top Western brands blocked highways, attacked factories and looted shops in Dhaka on Friday, after rejecting a government wage hike.

AP - Former "Fly Girl" Jennifer Lopez is poised to return to television — this time as a judge on "American Idol."

AP - Lost in the hoopla over Arizona's immigration law is the fact that state and local authorities for years have been doing their own aggressive crackdowns in the busiest illegal gateway into the country.

AP - Firefighters plan an aggressive air attack at first light Friday against a fast-moving wildfire that exploded in northern Los Angeles County, chewing through more than 7 square miles of dry brush, forcing hundreds of evacuations and burning at least three structures.

AP - Roy Oswalt granted his own wish: He's now part of a pennant race. Miguel Tejada, Jorge Cantu and Matt Capps joined the mix, too.

AP - Invasion of privacy in the Internet age. Expanding the reach of law enforcement to snoop on e-mail traffic or on Web surfing. Those are among the criticisms being aimed at the FBI as it tries to update a key surveillance law.

AP - Republicans wanted an election-season ethics case against Democratic powerhouse Rep. Charles Rangel of New York. And now, it looks like they have one.

AP - The already fragile economic recovery may be getting weaker.

AP - Three U.S. service members were killed in blasts in Afghanistan, bringing the toll for July to at least 63 and making it the deadliest month for American forces in the nearly 9-year-war.

AP - Incoming BP CEO Bob Dudley was set to outline his company's long-term efforts to help the Gulf of Mexico recover from the oil spill Friday morning, and will be getting help from a Clinton administration-era emergency management official.

AP - President Barack Obama is going to the heart of the U.S. auto industry to push an important election-year claim: his administration's unpopular auto industry bailout has turned into an economic good-news story.

AP - If some of Chelsea Clinton's wedding guests want to make a weekend of it in Rhinebeck, there's a stage production of "The Rocky Horror Show" on the boards Saturday night and Sunday.

AFP - Investigators spent a third day searching Friday for the black box of a Pakistani jet that crashed into Islamabad's hills, killing all 152 people on board, officials said.

AFP - Lebanon on Friday hosts a rare summit of regional leaders aimed at defusing tensions over reports of an impending indictment against Hezbollah members for the murder of ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.

AP - The death toll in three days of flooding in Pakistan reached at least 267 on Friday, rescue and government officials said, as rains bloated rivers, submerged villages, and triggered landslides.

AP - A bill that would have provided up to $7.4 billion in aid to people sickened by World Trade Center dust fell short in the House on Thursday, raising the possibility that the bulk of compensation for the ill will come from a legal settlement hammered out in the federal courts.

AP - A federal prosecutor said Thursday a former B-2 bomber engineer helped China design a stealth cruise missile to raise money to pay the $15,000-a-month mortgage on the mansion-like home he built on Maui's north shore.

Reuters - Three months after the catastrophic oil rig explosion that sent millions of gallons of crude spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. House of Representatives was poised on Friday to debate legislation clamping down on the industry's offshore drilling practices.

Reuters - Economic growth likely slowed in the second quarter as a capital investment drive by businesses was sated by imports and consumer spending tapered off, a government report is expected to show on Friday.