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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. regulators took over two banks on Friday and sold them to Mutual of Omaha Bank, the sixth and seventh bank failures this year as financial institutions struggle with a housing bust and credit crunch.

MADISON, Wis. - Wisconsin Democrats on Friday ousted a delegate to their national convention for saying she would vote for Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain in November.

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - The bride and groom grasped one another's dart launcher-clad wrists and stared into each other's starry eyes.

WASHINGTON - Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.'s $3.3 billion buyout of rival XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. will mean millions of subscribers will be able to receive programming from both services, while executives say it will create huge cost savings for the industry.

CARSON CITY, Nev. - The 28 branches of 1st National Bank of Nevada and First Heritage Bank, operating in Nevada, Arizona and California, were closed Friday by federal regulators.

MILWAUKEE - A Milwaukee man was accused of shooting his lawn mower because it wouldn't start. Keith Walendowski, 56, was charged with felony possession of a short-barreled shotgun or rifle and misdemeanor disorderly conduct while armed.

SYDNEY (Reuters) - A group of Aboriginal elders on Saturday left Australia for the United States to bring home the remains of 33 ancestors from the Smithsonian Institute, the first Aboriginal remains to be returned from the United States.

DAKAR, Senegal - To compete in the Francophone World Scrabble Championship, 32-year-old Elisee Poka spent five days in a bus traversing Africa's potholed roads. His competitors from France arrived by plane.

PITTSBURGH - Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist whose "last lecture" about facing terminal cancer became an Internet sensation and a best-selling book, died Friday. He was 47.

MANILA, Philippines - Australian investigators on Saturday began examining a Qantas jumbo jet which had to make an emergency landing after a large hole opened on its fuselage, a Philippine aviation official said.

PARIS - An aide to Sen. Barack Obama said Friday the Democratic presidential contender believed he could visit wounded troops at a military hospital in Germany without involving them in a campaign controversy and scrapped his plans after the Pentagon raised concerns.

MELBOURNE, Australia - A pet rabbit is credited with saving a couple from a fire that swept through their home in the southern city of Melbourne.

PORT CARBON, Pa. - Three white teens were charged Friday in what officials said was an epithet-filled fatal beating of an illegal Mexican immigrant in a small northeast Pennsylvania coal town. Brandon J. Piekarsky, 16, and Colin J. Walsh, 17, were charged as adults with homicide and ethnic intimidation in the July 12 attack on Luis Ramirez.

WASHINGTON - Only jalapeno peppers grown in Mexico are implicated in the nationwide salmonella outbreak, the government announced Friday in clearing the U.S. crop.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California on Friday became the first state to ban trans fats from restaurant food, following several cities and major fast-food chains in erasing the notorious artery-clogger from menus.

Barack Obama spoke in front of 200,000 Germans in Berlin on Thursday at the start of a European tour, while John McCain talked to small business leaders at a fourth-generation German restaurant in Columbus, Ohio. But regardless of the audience, people undoubtedly paid as much attention to the nonverbal performance as they did to what each presidential candidate said.

SEATTLE - Just blocks from the University of Washington, a line of people shuffle toward a food pantry, awaiting handouts such as milk and bread.

WASHINGTON - The total cost of the Iraq war is approaching the Vietnam War's expense, a congressional report estimates, while spending for military operations after 9/11 has exceeded it.

SAN DIEGO - "Lost" fans can start expecting some answers.

Barack Obama's vice presidential search team has floated the name of a member of President Bush's first-term Cabinet, Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman, as Obama's running mate.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. - Ready for the latest in spa pampering? Prepare to dunk your tootsies in a tank of water and let tiny carp nibble away.

WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A family court judge in New Zealand has had enough with parents giving their children bizarre names here, and did something about it.

VIENNA (AFP) - Salzburg is alive with the sound of music once again, as the von Trapp family's villa opened its doors to the public this weekend for the first time, as a hotel and museum.

SALZBURG, Austria (Reuters) - Maria von Trapp has taken a trip down memory lane to see her old family home just before it opens as a new hotel.

JERUSALEM - A written prayer that Barack Obama left this week in the cracks of the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, asks God to guide him and guard his family, an Israeli newspaper reported Friday.

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - When it comes to purchasing lottery tickets, making people feel poor will prompt them to spend more money on a chance to become rich, American researchers said.

AUCKLAND, New Zealand - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned China on Saturday not to use its massive Olympic security apparatus to crack down on legitimate dissent.

ASPEN, Colo. (Reuters) - U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain urged China on Friday to address human rights concerns and free Tibetan prisoners after he met with the Dalai Lama in Colorado.

BEIJING - Parents whose children died or were disabled in China's devastating earthquake will be allowed to have more children after lawmakers in the hardest-hit province waived strict family-planning controls, state media reported Saturday.