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AP - Owning an electric vehicle requires more than global-cooling ambitions. It takes guile, planning, sharp vision, a silver tongue — and a 50-foot extension cord.

AFP - For the past six months Wayne Hsu has been cycling 45 minutes to his office every day, which he says gets him off to an energetic start and, more importantly, slashes his monthly petrol bill.

AFP - A powerful earthquake hit near the South Pacific archipelago of Tonga on Sunday, but there was no tsunami alert and no immediate report of injuries, Australian seismologists said.

AFP - NASA on Sunday launched a probe into orbit high above earth to study the distant edge of the solar system where hot solar winds crash into the cold outer space.

AFP - OPEC will Friday announce it is cutting oil output to help lift crude prices that have dived 55 percent since striking record highs in July, as a global economic slowdown slashes demand, analysts said.

AP - The weather across most of the country was calm Saturday, the only significant turbulence occurring in the Southeast.

AP - For a newly hatched striped bass in the Hudson River, a clutch of trout eggs in Lake Michigan or a baby salmon in San Francisco Bay, drifting a little too close to a power plant can mean a quick and turbulent death.

AP - NASA's efforts to get the ailing Hubble Space Telescope working again have hit a snag, and engineers are trying to figure out their next step.

AP - Barack Obama and John McCain will attend a New York cat show this weekend — Obama the Bombay cat and McCain the American Shorthair, that is.

AP - A small NASA spacecraft embarks on a two-year mission this weekend to give scientists their first view of the happenings at the edge of the solar system. The Ibex probe, short for Interstellar Boundary Explorer, will study a chaotic region in space where the solar wind from the sun clashes with cold gases from interstellar space.

Reuters - Omar lost hurricane strength on Friday, weakening to a tropical storm in the Atlantic Ocean and posing no threat to land after causing little damage this week in the northern Caribbean.

AP - It's long been a mystery why the H.L. Hunley never returned after becoming the first submarine in history to sink an enemy warship in 1864, but new research announced Friday may lend credence to one of the theories. Scientists found the eight-man crew of the hand-cranked Confederate submarine had not set the pump to remove water from the crew compartment, which might indicate it was not being flooded.

AFP - New technical problems on the Hubble Space Telescope, which is currently undergoing repairs, will further delay the resumption of the telescope's regular duties, according to NASA officials.

AP - The beluga whales of Alaska's Cook Inlet are endangered and require additional protection to survive, the government declared Friday, contradicting Gov. Sarah Palin who has questioned whether the distinctive white whales are actually declining.

LiveScience.com - A pride of white lions, including two adult males and two juvenile females, has been released into Sanbona Wildlife Reserve in South Africa's Western Cape Province.

AP - An Iraqi lawmaker said Friday the government expects to cut its budget next year by $15 billion because of falling oil prices.

AP - World leaders must deal with the threat of global climate change despite the spreading "cancer" of the global financial crisis, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Friday.

AP - Texas farmers are once again battling armyworms and the voracious creatures are attacking fields and pastures in formidable numbers.