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AFP - The financial crisis and falling oil prices risk setting back attempts by the next US president and Congress to promote renewable energy and the fight against climate change, analysts say.

AP - For thousands of years the Acropolis has withstood earthquakes, weathered storms and endured temperature extremes, from scorching summers to winter snow. Now scientists are drawing on the latest technology to install a system that will record just how much nature is affecting the 2,500-year-old site. They hope their findings will help identify areas that could be vulnerable, allowing them to target restoration and maintenance.

AP - A federal judge blocked the city Friday from requiring all new taxicabs to be fuel-efficient hybrids, hampering Mayor Michael Bloomberg's ambitious goal to make all yellow cabs green by 2012.

AP - Rain and possible thunderstorms were forecast Friday for much of Central and Northern California, Oregon and Washington as a Pacific storm system pushes through the West Coast. Snow was likely in higher elevations in the region.

AP - Iraq plans to cut its 2009 draft budget to $67 billion in light of falling world oil prices, finance ministry officials said.

AFP - Floods have killed at least 19 people in central Vietnam, emergency services said Friday, as heavy rains also lashed the capital Hanoi and left many streets under one metre (three feet) of water.

AP - Australia became an integral link in a network of tsunami warning hubs across the Indian and Pacific oceans with the official opening of a national monitoring center Friday.

AP - A rare reptile with lineage dating back to the dinosaur age has been found nesting on the New Zealand mainland for the first time in about 200 years, officials said Friday.

AP - NASA's Phoenix Mars spacecraft regained contact with Earth more than a day after falling silent, but its days operating on the red planet are still numbered, mission managers said Thursday.

AP - An Israeli archaeologist has discovered what he believes is the oldest known Hebrew inscription on a 3,000-year-old pottery shard — a find that suggests Biblical accounts of the ancient Israelite kingdom of David could have been based on written texts.

AP - With a visit to the Hubble Space Telescope off until next spring at the earliest, NASA on Thursday chose Nov. 14 for its next space shuttle launch, a flight by Endeavour to the international space station.

AP - Wyoming is revising its gray wolf management plan in hopes of placating concerns about providing enough protection for the animals, but environmentalists said the changes are inadequate because wolves can still be shot on sight in most of the state.

AFP - Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell said on Thursday that net profits jumped 22 percent to 5.1 billion pounds in the third quarter, when oil prices hit record highs.

AFP - The US space probe MESSENGER made its second successful fly-by of the year of the planet Mercury, revealing like never before 30 percent of the solar system's smallest planet, scientists announced on Thursday.