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CHICAGO (Reuters) - Presidential candidates searching for votes in the U.S. heartland will find rising poverty. But appealing to the poor is not necessarily a winning strategy, analysts said.

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia successfully tested a long-range Topol missile designed to avoid detection by anti-missile defence systems from its Plesetsk launch site, a Russian military spokesman said on Thursday.

LONDON (Reuters) - A British computer expert accused by the United States of "the biggest military hack of all time" lost an appeal on Thursday and could be extradited within weeks.

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. troops will on Sept. 1 hand over control of Iraq's Anbar province, once the heart of a bloody Sunni Arab insurgency, reflecting a dramatic drop in violence across the country, an Iraqi official said on Thursday.

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - The Vatican has warned journalists who will travel with Pope Benedict to Lourdes next month not to put the revered water from the shrine in their hand luggage on the papal plane or it may be confiscated.

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan and U.S.-led coalition forces have killed more than 100 Taliban in the southern Afghan province of Helmand during three days of fighting, the U.S. military said on Thursday.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni will easily win leadership elections in the ruling Kadima party to replace embattled Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, poll results showed on Thursday.

TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgians prayed for their country on Thursday and buried soldiers killed in a war with Russia as the nation marked a religious holiday in somber mood.

PATNA, India (Reuters) - Indian army troops helped evacuate more than 120,000 people from floods in eastern India, but more bad weather raised fears that rivers would to continue to overflow, officials said on Thursday.

MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines has a lower incidence of HIV than most of its neighbors despite sharing many of the risks, but health officials warned on Thursday that many new cases were now coming to light.

GAZA (Reuters) - Israel on Thursday reopened its border crossings with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, two days after they were shut in response to rocket attacks.

SRINAGAR, India (Reuters) - Authorities tentatively relaxed a four-day curfew in Indian Kashmir on Thursday to allow people to buy essentials as residents ran short of food during massive protests against Indian rule.

DENVER (Reuters) - Barack Obama burst onto the national stage four years ago with a speech describing himself as a skinny guy with a funny name and an improbable life story.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - The hijackers of a Sudanese airliner surrendered to authorities in Libya on Wednesday after releasing all the passengers and crew, Libya's aviation authority said.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Thousands of lawyers blocked roads across Pakistan on Thursday to press the government to reinstate judges purged by former president Pervez Musharraf, as militants attacked police in the northwest, killing 11 people.

DENVER (Reuters) - Democrats prepared a grand celebration on Thursday for Barack Obama, who will accept a historic presidential nomination with a speech that spells out his vision for change in America.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Abie Nathan, an Israeli peace activist who blazed trails to Egypt and the Palestinians that his country would eventually follow, died on Wednesday. He was 81.

DENVER (Reuters) - Veteran Sen. Joe Biden accepted the Democratic vice presidential nomination on Wednesday and hailed running mate Barack Obama as a wise leader who will take the United States in a new direction and out of the Iraq war.

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A car bomb blew up as a Pakistani police bus traveled across a bridge in the country's northwest on Thursday, killing 11 people, police said.

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia's Anwar Ibrahim rejoined parliament on Thursday and was appointed leader of the opposition, taking another step towards his goal of winning power and reforming the economy.