AP - People familiar with the talks say representatives of New York Democrat Charles Rangel and lawyers for the House ethics committee have reached a plea deal in his ethics case. However, committee members have not agreed to the settlement.

AP - Opponents of Arizona's immigration crackdown went ahead with protests Thursday despite a judge's ruling that delayed enforcement of most the law, and dozens of people in Phoenix were arrested after peacefully confronting officers in riot gear.

AP - Estimates of the number of graves that might be affected by mix-ups at Arlington National Cemetery grew from hundreds to as many as 6,600 on Thursday, as the cemetery's former superintendent blamed his staff and a lack of resources for the scandal that forced his ouster.

AP - More than 1 million people are expected to participate in what amounts to the largest-ever public opinion poll on the nation's new health care law.

AP - Ousted Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod said Thursday she will sue a conservative blogger who posted a video edited in a way that made her appear racist.

AP - The discovery of the body of a second U.S. sailor who vanished in Afghanistan last week only deepened the mystery of the men's disappearance nearly 60 miles from their base in a dangerous area controlled by the Taliban.

AP - Raging forest fires encircled a southern Russian city and tore through provincial villages Thursday, forcing mass evacuations as Moscow suffered through a record, weeks-long heat wave and smog cloud caused by peat-bog fires.

AP - A Canadian company whose pipeline leaked hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into a major Michigan river was warned by government regulators in January that its monitoring of corrosion in the pipeline was insufficient.

AP - The estate of a man allegedly abused by a priest in the 1980s is suing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, alleging he committed suicide this year after the diocese stopped paying for his mental health treatments following two other suicide attempts.

Reuters - Police arrested at least 30 protesters who took to the streets of Phoenix on Thursday after Arizona adopted a new immigration law, even though its most intrusive provisions had already been blocked by a U.S. court.

Reuters - New claims for unemployment benefits slipped last week, but stayed at a stubbornly high level that underscored the labor market recovery was having trouble gaining traction.

Reuters - The tide of lawsuits unleashed by BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico breaks into an Idaho courtroom on Thursday, just as the company's rivals are counting the cost of a ban on offshore drilling.

Reuters - Heavy monsoon rains in Islamabad on Thursday hampered recovery efforts at the site of a Pakistani plane crash that killed all 152 people on board a day earlier, a senior police officer said.

Reuters - The Arab League said on Thursday it would back face-to-face peace talks between the Palestinians and Israel when the Palestinians believe the time is right.

Reuters - Representative Charles Rangel is near a deal on ethics charges that would let him avoid a trial that fellow Democrats fear could hurt them in the November election, an aide for the New York lawmaker said on Thursday.

AFP - Monsoon rain and clouds on Thursday hampered the search for the black box of a Pakistani airliner that slammed into hilly woodland killing all 152 people on board, the nation's worst aviation disaster.

AFP - A French nursing assistant admitted Thursday suffocating eight of her newborn babies "because she did not want any more children", prosecutors said.