AP - California's Supreme Court declared gay couples in the nation's biggest state can marry — a monumental but perhaps short-lived victory for the gay rights movement Thursday that was greeted with tears, hugs, kisses and at least one instant proposal of matrimony.

AP - Troops dug burial pits in this quake-shattered town and black smoke poured from crematorium chimneys elsewhere in central China as priorities began shifting Thursday from the hunt for survivors to dealing with the dead. Officials said the final toll could more than double to 50,000.

AP - Republican John McCain declared for the first time Thursday he believes the Iraq war can be won by 2013, although he rejected suggestions that his talk of a timetable put him on the same side as Democrats clamoring for full-scale troop withdrawals.

AP - The millions of dollars in assets reported by Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife, Lynn, nearly triple those held by President Bush and the first lady, Laura Bush, according to newly released financial disclosure forms.

AP - A Missouri woman was indicted Thursday for her alleged role in perpetrating a hoax on the online social network MySpace against a 13-year-old neighbor who committed suicide.

AP - Shania Twain and husband-producer Robert "Mutt" Lange are splitting up after 14 years of marriage. The 42-year-old Canadian country superstar and 59-year-old Lange married in 1993 and have a 6-year-old son named Eja. Her publicist provided no further details Thursday about the couple's breakup.

AP - Scott Kazmir sparkled in his first start since agreeing to a $28.5 million contract extension, and the surprising Tampa Bay Rays dropped the New York Yankees into last place with a 5-2 victory Thursday.

AP - Troops dug burial pits in this quake-shattered town and black smoke poured from crematorium chimneys elsewhere in central China as priorities began shifting Thursday from the hunt for survivors to dealing with the dead. Officials said the final toll could more than double to 50,000.

AP - Tang Xiaomin had just left her fourth-floor apartment to buy groceries when the building started crumbling around her. An upstairs neighbor was thrown against the kitchen table and grabbed her purse before rushing out. Another resident, who was expecting a baby, was resting and became trapped.

AP - After 11-year-old Zhang Jiazhi crawled free of the rubble that remained of his middle school, his parents began a 20-hour ordeal to get medical care for their son, whose arms were crushed to a pulp.

AP - U.S. and Iraqi troops moved against al-Qaida on two separate fronts Thursday, with house-to-house searches in Mosul and an operation in the desert to stanch the flow of insurgents and weapons to that northern city.

AP - From shopkeepers handing out free rice porridge to medical students caring for the sick, ordinary people in Myanmar are stepping in to help cyclone victims as the military regime severely restricts international aid.

AFP - Britain launched a new online service Friday to help track down travellers caught up in emergencies such as the current disasters in Myanmar and China.

AP - The Hezbollah-led opposition and U.S.-backed government reached a deal Thursday to end Lebanon's worst violence since the 1975-90 civil war, now that the Cabinet has reversed measures aimed at reining in the Iranian-backed militants.

AP - Interpol said Thursday that computer files suggesting Venezuela was arming and financing Colombian guerrillas came from a rebel camp and were not tampered with, discrediting Venezuela's assertions that Colombia faked them.

AFP - The United States criticized Thursday China's missile buildup along the Taiwan Strait and said Washington would continue to sell arms to Taiwan to bolster its defense needs.