AP - Connecticut's Supreme Court ruled Friday that gay couples have the right to marry, making the state the third behind Massachusetts and California to legalize such unions through the courts. The ruling comes just weeks before Californians go to the polls on a historic gay-marriage ballot question, the first time the issue will be put before voters in a state where same-sex couples are legally wed.

AP - Scientists have confirmed the second case of a "virgin birth" in a shark.

Politico - The unmistakable momentum behind Barack Obama's campaign, combined with worry that John McCain is not doing enough to stop it, is ratcheting up fears and frustrations among conservatives.

AFP - With the 2008 presidential election boiling down to a handful of battleground states, the tightest race of all has emerged in Missouri, the most accurate political bellwether state in US history.

AP - Alaska lawmakers are meeting behind closed doors to discuss a politically charged ethics report into Gov. Sarah Palin's firing of her state public safety commissioner.

AFP - When Barack Obama's campaign bus made a swing through Missouri in July, the unlikeliest of supporters were waiting for him -- or rather two of them, holding the banner: "Rednecks for Obama."

AP - Wall Street extended its devastating decline Friday as investors, still seeing no resolution to the credit crisis, sold frantically and propelled the Dow Jones industrials to their eighth straight day of losses and worst week ever. Stocks gyrated in the opening minutes as a burst of buying in financial stocks spread to other sectors, but all the major indexes were down more than 5 percent by midafternoon.

Reuters - Oliver Stone's film portrait of President George W. Bush was always going to be controversial given the director's liberal leanings.

AP - President Bush is ready to make a statement to the nation about the crisis in the credit markets that has caused substantial sell-offs on Wall Street.

AP - World markets were caught in Wall Street's downdraft as fears over a global financial crisis sent investors fleeing for the exits.

Reuters - Americans may like to make fun of girls who are good at math, but this attitude is robbing the country of some of its best talent, researchers reported on Friday.

AP - A newspaper report Thursday said tens of thousands of eligible voters have been removed from rolls or blocked from registering in at least six swing states. Election officials lined up to defend their registration procedures and said they had done nothing wrong.

AP - Finland's ex-president Martti Ahtisaari won the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for his efforts to build a lasting peace from Africa and Asia to Europe and the Middle East.

AFP - Oil prices slumped Friday to one-year lows under 80 dollars per barrel, striking 75 dollars in London, amid a global equities meltdown that sparked fears over demand for energy, traders said.

AP - The steel mills and coal mines of western Pennsylvania helped fuel the nation's economic engine. Today, old factory shells and boarded-up storefronts stand as bleak reminders of those once-prosperous times.

AP - Japan is set to propose to the world's leading industrialized nations that a joint fund be set up to give emergency loans to nations hit by the growing financial crisis, the finance minister said Friday.

Reuters - Democrat Barack Obama has opened a 5-point lead over Republican rival John McCain in the White House race and expanded his support among women voters, according to a Reuters/C-SPAN/Zogby poll released Friday.

AP - Presidential candidate Barack Obama on Friday accused Republican John McCain of trying to divide the country, but he let fellow Democrats handle harsher attacks while he kept his message mostly upbeat.