J.J. McGrath

The 2011-12 National Basketball Association season is likely to start on Christmas Day after the NBA and players reached a tentative deal on a new collective-bargaining agreement, league commissioner David Stern said Saturday.

The ruling center-right National Party was headed for a crushing win in New Zealand's general election on Saturday, with partial returns suggesting it would have an outright majority and not need any coalition partners.

NATO helicopters attacked a military checkpoint in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing as many as 25 troops and prompting Pakistan to shut the vital supply route for NATO troops fighting in Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said.

When Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. collapsed in September 2008 and shattered the belief that U.S. money-market funds would never break the buck, Washington rushed to limit the damage.

Anti-Wall Street protesters took over a vacant lot and adjacent park in downtown Oakland on Saturday and erected a tent camp to replace one torn down by police, setting the stage for a potential showdown.

Spaniards are voting in a parliamentary election on Sunday that is expected to throw out the ruling Socialists and bring in a new center-right government to tackle the country's dire economic situation.

At least two rocket-propelled grenades hit a ruling Baath Party building in Damascus on Sunday, residents said, in the first insurgent attack reported inside the Syrian capital since an eight-month uprising began against President Bashar al-Assad.

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich has roared into the lead of the Republican nominating race, brushing off concerns about his work for a troubled housing company, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.

Clashes erupted between protesters and police in Cairo and two other Egyptian cities, killing two people and wounding hundreds in the biggest security challenge yet for the country's ruling generals days before scheduled elections.

A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 5.5 jolted the Ibaragi Prefecture near Tokyo on Sunday, Japanese public broadcaster NHK said, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injury.

The Australian arm of the collapsed U.S. futures broker MF Global Holdings Ltd. has been shuttered by the administrator Deloitte after no buyers could be found, The Australian newspaper reported on Saturday.

Moammar Gadhafi's son and heir apparent Saif al-Islam has been detained in the southern desert, Libya's interim justice minister and other officials said on Saturday.

The United States and China faced off on Saturday over the thorny issue of how to resolve competing claims by Asian countries to sovereignty of the South China Sea, the latest point of friction between the two powers.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is seeking to speed up reform of the European Union treaty, and she wants all 27 European Union member states to give their approval by the end of next year, government sources said Sunday.

A massive explosion at a military arms depot near the Iranian capital Tehran on Saturday killed 17 Revolutionary Guards and wounded 15, a representative of the elite fighting force told the semiofficial Fars news agency.

In the wake of the Pennsylvania State University child sex-abuse scandal, The Citadel military college in South Carolina revealed on Saturday that it had investigated accusations against a camp counselor, but took no action.

Italy's head of state begins talks Sunday to appoint an emergency government to succeed outgoing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and handle a crisis that has brought the Eurozone's third-largest economy to the brink of financial disaster.

Richard Smith, a retired attorney and U.S Navy veteran, has a message for Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and the rest of the special bipartisan committee in Congress that is trying to reach a deal to cut the deficit.

A massive explosion at a military arms depot near the Iranian capital Tehran killed 15 servicemen on Saturday and seriously wounded several others, in what officials were treating as an accident.

The Arab League called on the Syrian army to stop the killing of civilians on Saturday and said it was suspending Syria from the regional body in a surprise move that turns up the heat on President Bashar al-Assad.

The European Union turned up the heat on bickering Greek politicians Sunday to agree on a crisis coalition, demanding progress toward backing an international bailout deal in the next 24 hours.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou will resign as soon as a deal for an interim coalition government is reached, perhaps as early as Sunday night, a senior member of his party said.

A magnitude-5.6 earthquake struck in Oklahoma late Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, toppling a chimney, damaging buildings, and sending a boulder the size of a sport-utility vehicle onto a rural road.

Allegations that Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain sexually harassed women in the 1990s have begun to damage his bid for the White House, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found.

A magnitude-5.6 earthquake with an epicenter about 50 miles outside Oklahoma City hit around 10:53 p.m. CDT Saturday -- the largest and last quake in a series of nine to strike Oklahoma the same day -- the U.S. Geological Survey reported Sunday.

Andy Rooney, the curmudgeonly commentator who pondered everything from shoelaces to the existence of God on CBS's 60 Minutes news show for more than 30 years, died Friday night at the age of 92, CBS said.

Major Gen. Peter Fuller, a top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, was relieved of his duties Friday after making comments critical of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, a senior U.S. defense official said.

A magnitude-5.8 earthquake shook northern Chile early Saturday, but there were no immediate reports of any damage to property or copper mines in the area, emergency and mine officials said.

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou is meeting with Greek President Karolos Papoulias Saturday in the drive for a new coalition government to save the nation from bankruptcy and prevent its debt crisis from spreading chaos across the Eurozone.