Moderate Dems pivotal in Saturday health care vote
WASHINGTON (AP) - Suitably opaque, Section 2006 takes up only a few dozen lines in a sweeping health care bill that runs to 2,074 pages and mentions neither Sen. Mary Landrieu nor her state of Louisiana. But the section's purpose is indisputable: to deliver $100 million or more in federal funds to the state. And in the process clear the way for one of three moderate Democratic fence-sitters - Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas are the others - to help propel the legislation past its initial hurdle in a crucial Saturday vote.

US to drop shooting case against Blackwater guard
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Justice Department intends to drop manslaughter and weapons charges against one of the Blackwater Worldwide security guards involved in a deadly 2007 Baghdad shooting, prosecutors said in court documents Friday. The shooting in busy Nisoor Square left 17 Iraqis dead and inflamed anti-American sentiment abroad. It touched off a string of investigations that ultimately led the State Department to cancel the company's lucrative contract to guard diplomats in Iraq.

Tamiflu-resistant swine flu cluster reported in NC
ATLANTA (AP) - Four North Carolina patients at a single hospital tested positive for a type of swine flu that is resistant to Tamiflu, health officials said Friday. The cases reported at Duke University Medical Center over six weeks make up the biggest cluster seen so far in the U.S.

Museum: Galileo's fingers, tooth are found
ROME (AP) - Two fingers and a tooth removed from Galileo Galilei's corpse in a Florentine basilica in the 18th century and given up for lost have been found again and will soon be put on display, an Italian museum director said Friday. Three fingers, a vertebra and a tooth were removed from the astronomer's body by admirers in 1737, 95 years after his death, as his corpse was being moved from a storage place to a monumental tomb - opposite that of Michelangelo, in Santa Croce Basilica in Florence.

Researcher: Faint writing seen on Shroud of Turin
ROME (AP) - A Vatican researcher has rekindled the age-old debate over the Shroud of Turin, saying that faint writing on the linen proves it was the burial cloth of Jesus. Experts say the historian may be reading too much into the markings, and they stand by carbon-dating that points to the shroud being a medieval forgery.