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WASHINGTON - Three ballistic missile crew members in North Dakota fell asleep while holding classified launch code devices this month, triggering an investigation by military and National Security Agency experts, the Air Force said Thursday.

BERLIN - Cheered by an enormous international crowd, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama on Thursday summoned Europeans and Americans together to "defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it" as surely as they conquered communism a generation ago.

WASHINGTON - Sixteen years after Barbie dolls declared, "Math class is tough!" girls are proving that when it comes to math they are just as tough as boys.

WASHINGTON - The Justice Department in 2002 told the CIA that its interrogators would be safe from prosecution for violations of anti-torture laws if they believed "in good faith" that harsh techniques used to break prisoners' will would not cause "prolonged mental harm."

WASHINGTON - The Secret Service has asked for an extra $9.5 million to cover unexpected costs of protecting the presidential candidates during what has turned into an historic year for the agency's campaign security job.

Calculated political ploy. Timely foreign outreach. A dash of each? Ask voters across the country about Barack Obama's image-packed week of foreign travel and you'll get a mix of admiration, suspicion, even a couple of bored shrugs.

WASHINGTON - House Republicans on Thursday scuttled a bill that Democrats hoped would help lower gasoline prices by forcing the Energy Department to release 70 million barrels of oil — about a three-day supply — from the national stockpile.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Republican presidential candidate John McCain had his own German experience Thursday — at a restaurant in Ohio. He asserted that he was happy to devote his time this week to touring the nation's heartland.

BERLIN - Sen. Barack Obama scrapped plans to visit wounded members of the armed forces in Germany as part of his overseas trip, a decision his campaign said was made because the Democratic presidential candidate thought it would be inappropriate on a campaign-funded journey.

Addressing more than 200,000 elated Europeans massed in Berlin at twilight, presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama  promised Thursday that he would work to unite Christians, Muslims and Jews in a safer, more united world.

BERLIN (AFP) - Barack Obama told a vast crowd of 200,000 people in Berlin that Americans and Europeans must tear down walls between estranged allies, races and faiths, in a soaring challenge to a new political generation.

WASHINGTON - The House voted Thursday to triple money to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis around the world, giving new life and new punch to a program credited with saving or prolonging millions of lives in Africa alone.

WASHINGTON - Voluntary pollution-reduction programs touted by the Bush administration as part of the solution to global warming have "limited potential" to reduce greenhouse gases, according to an internal government watchdog.

WASHINGTON - Environmental Protection Agency chief Stephen Johnson has declined to explain before Congress how a conclusion he made last year that global warming put the public in danger could lead to a decision not to regulate greenhouse gases.

WASHINGTON - The towering trucks that give U.S. troops the best protection against roadside bombs and enemy bullets also make them vulnerable to routine hazards like sharp turns, rutted roads and rickety bridges.

WASHINGTON - Some 90 billion barrels of oil and a third of the world's undiscovered natural gas lie beneath an area north of the Arctic Circle, government scientists estimate in the largest-ever survey of the energy resources there.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives on Thursday failed to pass legislation intended to cool off gasoline prices by requiring the government to sell 70 million barrels of light sweet crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the national stockpile.

OMAHA, Neb. - Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, fresh from an Iraq trip with Democrat Barack Obama, said the presidential candidates should focus on the war's future and stop arguing over the success of last year's troop surge.

Republicans have no lack of would-be George F. Wills.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The White House confirmed Thursday that it wants to shift 230 million dollars in aid to Pakistan from counter-terrorism programs to upgrading Islamabad's ageing F-16 fighter jets.