NEW YORK (AP) — Workers are lifting the final sections of the silver spire atop One World Trade Center, which will bring the iconic New York City structure to its full, symbolic height of 1,776 feet.

BERLIN (AP) — President Barack Obama will visit Berlin next month for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel on his first visit to the German capital since taking office, her spokesman said Friday.

BANGKOK (AP) — Thailand's celebrity baby panda Lin Ping is almost 4 years old now. It's time to move to China, find a mate and have cubs.

NEW YORK (AP) — Stock futures are rising and all major markets appear to be headed for solid gains this week.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel made a surprise visit Friday to northern Afghanistan to visit her troops less than two weeks after insurgents killed a German special forces soldier and wounded a second, a military spokesman said.

BAMAKO (Reuters) - Suspected Islamists carried out three attacks on soldiers from Mali and Niger in northern Mali on Friday, injuring one Malian soldier and leaving at least five suicide bombers dead, a spokesman for Mali's army said. The attacks took place between 4 and 5 a.m. in Menaka and Gossi, near Gao - the first major town freed from the control of Islamist fighters during a French-led military intervention earlier this year. "The first attack targeted Nigerien soldiers in Menaka. A car bomb entered the (military) camp, but the soldiers ... ...

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's National Union of Mineworkers is asking state-owned power utility Eskom to increase wages by up to 3,500 rand and hike the housing allowance by an additional 3,000 rand, the union said on Friday. The union also said it was pushing for a one-year agreement rather than a multi-year deal.

By Joseph Menn WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The proliferation of hacking tools known as zero-day exploits is raising concerns at the highest levels in Washington, even as U.S. agencies and defense contractors have become the biggest buyers of such products. White House cybersecurity policy coordinator Michael Daniel said the trend was "very worrisome to us." Asked if U.S. government buying in the offensive market was adding to the problem, Daniel said more study was needed. "There is a lot more work to be done in that space to look at the economic questions... ...

By Joseph Menn WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Even as the U.S. government confronts rival powers over widespread Internet espionage, it has become the biggest buyer in a burgeoning gray market where hackers and security firms sell tools for breaking into computers. The strategy is spurring concern in the technology industry and intelligence community that Washington is in effect encouraging hacking and failing to disclose to software companies and customers the vulnerabilities exploited by the purchased hacks. That's because U.S. ...

DHAKA (Reuters) - A woman was rescued on Friday after spending 17 days trapped under the rubble of a Bangladesh factory building that collapsed on April 24, killing more than 1,000 people, police and military officials said. Bangladeshi television channels broadcast live footage of emergency service workers pulling the woman from the collapsed building, as onlookers burst into cheers. The woman, identified by Bangladeshi media only as Reshma, was shown being carried on a stretcher and loaded into an ambulance as a rescue worker applied an oxygen mask to her face. ...

SYDNEY (AP) — The moon glided between the Earth and sun, blocking everything but a dazzling ring of light, for the few skygazers lucky enough to see Friday's "ring of fire" eclipse in northern Australia and the South Pacific.

DHAKA (Reuters) - The death toll from the catastrophic collapse of a Bangladesh factory building, the world's worst industrial accident since the Bhopal disaster in India in 1984, climbed above 1,000 and more bodies might still be trapped inside as rescuers struggle to end the salvage operation. More than two weeks after the accident, bodies were still being pulled from the rubble of the Rana Plaza complex, and on Friday a spokesman at the army control room coordinating the operation said the number of people confirmed to have been killed had reached 1,038. ...

MONROVIA, Liberia (AP) — Newspapers in Liberia have printed black front pages after a government official was accused of threatening journalists.

TOKYO (AP) — The dollar soared above 100 yen for the first time in more than four years Friday, driven by aggressive credit-easing aimed at reviving Japan's sluggish economy and improved U.S. economic figures.

By Pascal Fletcher JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - After years of headlines about Africa's poverty, its emerging middle class is now grabbing attention as a driver of growth and democracy and an expanding pool of consumers for market-hungry retailers. Consumer demand is a motor of Africa's economic and investment surge, and analysts see middle class buyers with swelling disposable income as fuelling this boom from South Africa to Nigeria and Kenya. ...

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Rescue workers in Bangladesh said Friday they found a female survivor buried amid the wreckage of a garment factory building that collapsed 17 days ago and killed more than 1,000.

SYDNEY (AP) — Police have called off the search for two Australian passengers two days after they were lost overboard from a Carnival Corp. cruise ship off the Australian east coast.

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - A bomb exploded outside a police station in Benghazi around 4am (0200 GMT) on Friday, damaging the building and shattering the windows of a school opposite but causing no injuries, a police official said. Police stations have been bombed at least three times in the past month in the eastern city of Benghazi, the second largest in Libya.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Two popes are praying together at the Vatican, one Catholic and one Orthodox.

LONDON (Reuters) - The United States must not delay raising its debt ceiling as ensuing uncertainty would hurt both the U.S. and the global economy, U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said in an interview on CNBC television on Friday. "Congress should deal with this right away. The fact that they have more time should not put off dealing with this," he said. "I don't think that it's in the interests of the U.S. or the world economy for Congress to wait until the last minute and create a sense of anxiety. Congress has to raise the debt limit. ...