AFP - John Toshack resigned as Wales coach on Thursday after just one match of his country's Euro 2012 qualifying campaign.

AFP - Eleven police recruits died and another four were injured when flames engulfed their barracks in a Cairo suburb on Thursday, a security official told AFP.

AP - The legitimacy of Afghanistan's parliamentary elections is severely threatened by insurgent attacks on candidates and the lack of security provided by the government, an international rights group said Thursday.

AP - Four prisoners with links to al-Qaida being guarded by American troops escaped from a maximum-security prison in Baghdad and are still at large, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Thursday.

AP - South Africa's murder rate, one of the highest in the world, has dropped by 8.6 percent to its lowest level in nearly two decades, according to statistics released Thursday.

AP - New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady walked away unhurt from a two-car accident near his home on Thursday morning and was expected at practice later in the day, the team confirmed.

AP - The remnants of Tropical Storm Hermine trekked northward after forcing more than 100 high-water rescues in Texas, swamping streets, producing several tornadoes and killing at least two people.

AP - Thousands of people waited Thursday to learn if their homes survived a wildfire that's raged for four days in a parched area near Boulder as firefighters battled to contain the blaze before winds picked up.

AP - Something was wrong.

AP - New York's governor says the imam behind the proposed Islamic community center near ground zero has offered an "opening" with his latest comments about the debate.

AFP - The US trade deficit dropped more than expected in July as exports reached their highest level in two years, official data showed Thursday, boosting hopes for the US economic recovery.

AP - As Florida officials worried about public safety surrounding a small church's plan to burn the Quran, President Barack Obama added his voice to the chorus of opposition to the church's intention to burn copies of Islam's holiest text to mark the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

AP - A suicide car bomber hit the central market of a major city in Russia's North Caucasus on Thursday, killing at least 17 and wounding more than 130 people in one of the worst attacks in the volatile region in years, officials said.

Reuters - New claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week to a two-month low, while the trade deficit narrowed sharply in July, hopeful signs for the stuttering economic recovery.

AP - The number of people signing up for unemployment benefits dropped to the lowest level in two months, an encouraging sign that companies aren't resorting to deeper layoffs even as the economy has lost momentum.

Reuters - The trade deficit narrowed more than expected in July, as imports retreated and exports shot to their highest since August 2008, according to a government report on Thursday that could lift hopes for third-quarter economic growth.

AFP - The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits fell faster than expected last week, extending a three-week decline, government data showed Thursday.

AP - President Barack Obama is exhorting a Florida minister to "listen to those better angels" and call off his plan to engage in a Quran-burning protest this weekend.

AP - North Korea celebrated its 62nd anniversary Thursday with odes to supreme leader Kim Jong Il and pilgrimages to his late father's statue amid hints that a political meeting believed aimed at promoting his son as successor is imminent.

Reuters - The Bank of England kept interest rates at 0.5 percent for the 18th month in a row and announced no new quantitative easing purchases, in a widely expected decision on Thursday.

AP - The number of people dying on the nation's roads has fallen to its lowest level in six decades, helped by a combination of seat belts, safer cars and tougher enforcement of drunken driving laws.

AP - Some victims in a botched hostage rescue of a tourist bus in the Philippines may have been hit by police fire, the nation's top law enforcement official said Thursday.

AP - Suzi Hanks reads Playboy magazine for the articles. And the jokes. And the letters and cartoons.

AFP - Global equities rose and the dollar steadied against the euro on Thursday amid renewed confidence in the economy and as markets awaited US jobs data and a British interest rate decision.

AP - Cuba's communist economic model has come in for criticism from an unlikely source: Fidel Castro.

AP - Former first lady Laura Bush will speak at a National Park Service fundraiser in Pittsburgh on Friday, a day before joining Michelle Obama in rural Pennsylvania to remember the victims of Flight 93, which crashed there in the Sept. 11 attacks.

AP - The police officer who shot and killed a knife-wielding man whose death has sparked three days of violent protests in Los Angeles had been involved in two previous shootings while on duty, according to a media report.

AP - The father of a U.S. soldier serving in Afghanistan says he tried nearly a half dozen times to pass an urgent message from his son to the Army: Troops in his unit had murdered an Afghan civilian, planned more killings and threatened him to keep quiet about it.

AP - Afghanistan's top prosecutor said Thursday that while President Hamid Karzai backs the work of Western-supported anti-corruption teams, he wants investigations to be led by Afghans and free of interference from international advisers.

AP - Amid the uproar over the proposed mosque near ground zero in New York, a new Islamic college recently opened its doors in California with plans to educate a new generation of Muslim-American leaders.

AP - BP's long-awaited internal report on what it believes went wrong when a rig exploded and started the massive Gulf oil spill never mentions the words blame, regret, apology, mistake or pollution. The word fault shows up 20 times, but only once in the same sentence as the company's name.

Reuters - Switzerland remains the world's most competitive economy, while the United States has fallen from second to fourth after losing the top spot last year, according to the World Economic Forum's annual rankings issued on Thursday.

AFP - Australian regulators rejected National Australia Bank's 12.2 billion US dollar bid for financial firm AXA Asia Pacific on competition concerns Thursday, in a move welcomed by rival suitor AMP.