New home sales fell more sharply than expected in February, the latest sign of a slowdown what had been a white hot home building market.

AP - The prime minister said Friday that if the government confirms that the Basque separatist group ETA's permanent cease-fire is authentic, he will push for peace talks in a matter of months.

Reuters - Car dealership group AutoNation Inc. on Friday forecast a first-quarter profit that was lower than Wall Street expectations.

AFP - East Asia and Pacific nations must protect young people from HIV/AIDS or face an epidemic that will kill nearly 20,000 children a year in less than a decade.

BT is targeting more than 3,000 broadband users who it says are exceeding their monthly download limits.

AP - One of the world's oldest creatures, a giant tortoise believed to have been about 250 years old, has died in the Calcutta zoo where it spent more than half its long life.

AP - The World War II airman whose body was found on a mountainside more than six decades after his plane crashed was raised by Finnish immigrant parents in this central Minnesota community.

AP - Toshiba Corp. said Friday it has postponed the release of high-definition DVD players in the United States until April, a month later than planned, so that it can synchronize the sales with title releases from Hollywood studies.

Reuters - The New York City Opera has a spotty past when it comes to presenting revivals of Broadway musicals, but Frank Loesser's 1956 classic provides a better fit for the company than most.

Reuters - No one does preoccupied better than Bill Nighy -- best known Stateside for roles in such films as "Love Actually" and "The Constant Gardener" -- and playing to his strength as a serenely detached public relations guru just about saves "Gideon's Daughter," a ponderous story of family alienation.

AP - Each year, endangered white sturgeon lay millions of fertilized eggs on the silty bed of the Kootenai River in the Idaho Panhandle. Yet experts estimate only 10 of the sturgeon hatched from those eggs survive.

AP - Suspected insurgents killed one policeman and wounded three others in a drive-by shooting in west Baghdad Friday morning, police said.

AP - Kenton Paulino beat West Virginia at its own game, hitting a 3-pointer as time expired to give Texas a 74-71 victory over the Mountaineers on Thursday night in the third round of the NCAA tournament.

AP - A huge fire swept through a slum area in a southern Philippine city, destroying more than 1,500 wooden homes but causing no casualties, officials said Friday.

AP - Young Hurricane Katrina refugees living in Texas scored considerably worse on a statewide standardized exam than Texas children, and thousands of them could be held back.

Reuters - The U.N. Security Council agreed on Thursday to ask Secretary-General Kofi Annan to greatly speed planning for a new U.N. force in Sudan's western Darfur region.

AP - At the telecommunications conference here this week, a visitor could be forgiven for thinking he missed a turn and walked into the wrong trade show, a more glamorous one that dealt with entertainment rather than the plain old telephone system.

AP - Seven years into his professional tennis career, James Blake finally feels comfortable that less than his best can be more than enough.

Reuters - Finally, there is an answer to the old question, "What's more boring than watching golf on television?" As the new documentary "95 Miles to Go" reveals, watching Ray Romano watching golf on television is much more boring. So is watching Ray Romano eat at Subway. And nibble from a friend's room-service tray. And drive a car.

AP - Fans of television comedy are stuck in a time warp.