AP - Chanting and waving flags, thousands of followers of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr filled a central Baghdad square Friday to protest a proposed U.S.-Iraqi security pact that would allow American troops to stay for three more years.

Reuters - Iraqi forces shut streets in Baghdad and placed snipers on rooftops on Friday before a protest by followers of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr against a pact allowing U.S. troops to remain for three more years.

AP - European and Asian stock markets rebounded Friday as expectations of a recovery on Wall Street prompted investors to scoop up battered financial and energy shares.

AP - Attorney General Michael Mukasey was hospitalized but conscious and alert early Friday after collapsing during a late-night speech to a conservative legal group.

AP - The CIA withheld information from the White House, Justice Department and Congress about the 2001 shooting down of a plane over Peru carrying an American missionary family, part of a yearslong cover-up of lethal violations in U.S. drug-interdiction procedures, according to a classified internal CIA report.