ANCHORAGE, Alaska — North Pole elves have good reason to celebrate again, thanks to a decision by the U.S. Postal Service to resume a Santa Claus letter program that's thrilled children from around the world for decades.

ROME — A Vatican researcher has rekindled the age-old debate over the Shroud of Turin, saying that faint writing on the linen proves it was the burial cloth of Jesus.

WASHINGTON — The Senate ethics committee on Friday admonished Democratic Sen. Roland Burris for misleading investigators about his maneuvering to get Barack Obama's old Senate seat from the governor who was ousted for trying to sell it.

GENEVA — Scientists switched on the world's largest atom smasher Friday night for the first time since the $10 billion machine suffered a spectacular failure more than a year ago.

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia — Sen. John McCain predicted success in the Afghan war effort Friday if President Obama makes a decision quickly to send the reinforcements requested by his top commander there.

NEW YORK — Is it too soon to begin missing Oprah?

WASHINGTON — A retired State Department employee will spend life in prison without parole after he and his wife pleaded guilty Friday to serving as covert agents for Cuba for three decades.

WASHINGTON — Republicans are seizing on this week's recommendations for fewer Pap smears and mammograms to fuel concern about government-rationed medical care — and to try to chip away support by women for President Obama's proposed health-care overhaul.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — Valuing truth over the right to privacy, Argentina's Congress has authorized the forced extraction of DNA from people who may have been born to political prisoners slain a quarter-century ago — even when they don't want to know their birth parents.

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. — Marines treated at Camp Lejeune for post-traumatic stress had to undergo therapy for months in temporary trailers where they could hear bomb blasts, machine-gun fire and war cries through the thin walls, according to servicemen and their former psychiatrist.