Yahoo! News: Top Stories

AP - Voting began Saturday across most parts of this cyclone-ravaged nation on a referendum for a controversial constitution, but balloting was delayed for two weeks in the hardest hit areas, including the capital.

AP - Barack Obama all but erased Hillary Rodham Clinton's once-imposing lead among national convention superdelegates on Friday and won fresh labor backing as elements of the Democratic Party began coalescing around the Illinois senator for the fall campaign.

AP - Big corporations give him money. Presidential candidates seek his endorsement. He has influential friends in Congress and the governor's mansion. The Rev. Al Sharpton has emerged over the past decade as perhaps the nation's most prominent civil rights leader, a status that was demonstrated again this week when he led protests against police brutality that briefly shut down six of Manhattan's major bridges and tunnels.

AP - The Pentagon is recommending changes in the handling of troops' remains, after it was revealed that a crematorium contracted by the military handles both human and animal cremations.

AP - The U.S. military is reinforcing the sides of its topline mine-resistant vehicles to shore up what could be weak points as troops see a spike in armor-piercing roadside bombings across Iraq, The Associated Press has learned.

AP - Two children and their mother lived for about two months with the decaying body of a 90-year-old woman on the toilet of their home's only bathroom, on the advice of a religious "superior" who claimed the corpse would come back to life, authorities said Friday.

AP - Jon Edwards often manages what appears impossible. He has recovered precious data from computers wrecked in floods and fires and dumped in lakes. Now Edwards may have set a new standard: He found information on a melted disk drive that fell from the sky when space shuttle Columbia disintegrated in 2003.

AP - Barbara Walters says she refuses to engage in a debate with Star Jones, who accused her of revealing a past affair with a senator just to sell books. Walters said despite the public rift, she prefers to hold onto the good times the former co-hosts shared on "The View."

AP - The 55-year-old Omaha man who performed a tracheotomy on himself with a steak knife says he did the same thing to himself two years ago.

AP - Seattle slugger Richie Sexson was suspended for six games and fined Friday by Major League Baseball after charging the mound and throwing his helmet at a Texas pitcher the previous night.

Reuters - Lebanon's Iranian-backed Hezbollah group took control of the Muslim half of Beirut on Friday in what the U.S.-backed governing coalition called "an armed and bloody coup."

Reuters - The United Nations appealed for $187 million in aid on Friday to help 1.5 million victims in cyclone-ravaged Myanmar and said it would resume relief flights despite the military government's seizure of food supplies.

Reuters - Democrat Barack Obama turned his focus to a U.S. general election showdown with John McCain on Friday and said the Republican White House candidate would continue the "failed policies" of President George W. Bush.

Reuters - Good weather will help the world's farmers reap record wheat and rice crops this year, the U.S. government said on Friday, which should allay fears of shortages and help bring prices down from current high levels.

Reuters - Did U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain vote for President George W. Bush in 2000?

Reuters - A group of senior U.S. senators urged President George W. Bush on Friday to visit Tibet when he travels to China in August to attend the Beijing Olympics.

Reuters - Canadian health officials said on Friday that a death and reported outbreak of flu-like symptoms aboard a cross-Canada train were not due to an infectious disease and in fact were likely not related at all.

AFP - Polling stations opened Saturday in parts of cyclone-hit Myanmar, as the military regime asked voters to approve a new constitution just one week after tens of thousands of people died in the storm.

AFP - Hezbollah fighters, their guns blazing, seized control of west Beirut on Friday after three days of deadly street battles with pro-government foes pushed Lebanon dangerously close to all-out civil war.