GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — An associate of the pastor who once planned to burn copies of the Quran to mark the 9/11 anniversary says the Rev. Terry Jones is headed to New York aboard a Friday night flight.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Facing big Democratic losses in November, President Barack Obama blamed Republicans and election-year politics Friday for thwarting his efforts to do more to spur a listless national economy. He challenged Congress to quit squabbling and quickly approve "what we all agree on" — a reprieve for expiring tax cuts for the middle class.

NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. investigators have widened their probe of alleged kickbacks paid to Russian authorities by employees of a Hewlett-Packard Co. subsidiary in Germany.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Irwin Silber, the founding editor of the small but highly influential folk music magazine Sing Out, has died at age 84.

GANJUWA, Nigeria (AP) — Patients jammed rudimentary clinics and health workers in surgical masks sprayed anti-bacterial solution on muddy paths as the government struggled to contain a cholera epidemic that has killed nearly 800 Nigerians in two months.

NEW YORK (AP) — After trailing for much of the third set, Venus Williams suddenly was right back in the thick of her U.S. Open semifinal against Kim Clijsters, serving at 4-all, 30-all.

NEW YORK (AP) — They will read the names, of course, the names of every victim who died in the Sept. 11 attacks. The bells will ring. And then that moment of unity will give way to division as activists hoist signs and march, some for and some against a planned mosque two blocks from ground zero.

SAN JOSE MINE, Chile (AP) — Chile is sparing no expense to rescue its 33 trapped miners, mounting three separate drilling efforts to carve escape tunnels through nearly a half-mile of solid rock and collapsed mine shafts. The latest — an oil-well drill so big it takes 40 trucks to carry it — began arriving Friday.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — For Alaska U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, the odds of winning a write-in campaign to keep her job would be exceedingly long and the personal political stakes just as high.

REYNOLDSBURG, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio middle school says human error caused parents to be mistakenly alerted that their fifth- and sixth-graders were absent.