ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Cheered by a roaring crowd, Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois laid claim to the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday night, taking a historic step toward his once-improbable goal of becoming the nation's first black president. Hillary Rodham Clinton maneuvered for the vice presidential spot on his fall ticket without conceding her own defeat.

"America, this is our moment," the 46-year-old senator and one-time community organizer said in his first appearance as the Democratic nominee-in-waiting. "This is our time. Our time to turn the page on the policies of the past."

CHICAGO (AP) — History within his reach, Barack Obama was primed to claim the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday or soon after as voters in Montana and South Dakota bring his months-long contest with dogged rival Hillary Rodham Clinton to a close. Clinton appeared ready to bow to the inevitable and spare the party an even more protracted fight.

Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said Tuesday that once Obama gets the majority of convention delegates, "I think Hillary Clinton will congratulate him and call him the nominee."

ROME (AP) — World food production must rise by 50 percent by 2030 to meet increasing demand, U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon told world leaders Tuesday at a summit grappling with hunger and civil unrest caused by food price hikes.

The secretary-general told the Rome summit that nations must minimize export restrictions and import tariffs during the food price crisis and quickly resolve world trade talks.

"The world needs to produce more food," Ban said.

The Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization is hosting the three-day summit to try to solve the short-term emergency of increased hunger caused by soaring prices and to help poor countries grow enough food to feed their own.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Space shuttle Discovery and a crew of seven blasted into orbit Saturday, carrying a giant Japanese lab addition to the international space station along with something more mundane — a toilet pump.

Discovery roared into a brilliantly blue sky dotted with a few clouds at 5:02 p.m., right on time.

The shuttle's trip to the space station should take two days. Once there, Discovery's crew will unload and install the $1 billion lab and hand-deliver a specially made pump for the outpost's finicky toilet.

The school-bus-size lab, named Kibo, Japanese for hope, will be the biggest room by far at the space station and bring the orbiting outpost to three-quarters of completion.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic Party leaders agreed Saturday to seat Michigan and Florida delegates with half-votes at this summer's convention with a compromise that left Barack Obama on the verge of the nomination but riled Hillary Rodham Clinton backers who threatened to fight to the August convention.

"Hijacking four delegates is not a good way to start down the path of party unity," said adviser Harold Ickes.

Clinton's camp maintains she was entitled to four additional Michigan delegates.

NEW YORK (AP) — A construction crane collapsed Friday on New York's Upper East Side, smashing into a 23-story apartment building as it fell to the ground, killing two construction workers and seriously injuring another.

It was the second deadly crane accident in 2½ months and the latest of several construction mishaps in the city, which recently shook up its Building Department and beefed up inspections.

"What has happened is unacceptable and intolerable. Having said that, we do not know at the moment what happened or why," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said at a news conference, adding that it appears the builders followed regulations.

BAGHDAD (AP) — A suicide bomber blew himself up Thursday in a crowd of police recruits in northwestern Iraq, killing at least 16 men and wounding 14 others, an official said.

The blast occurred in Sinjar, a town near the Syrian border that was the site of the deadliest attack of the war — a series of suicide truck bombings that killed an estimated 500 people.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the latest attack. But it bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida in Iraq, underscoring Iraqi claims that insurgents have fled to remote areas to escape a U.S.-Iraqi offensive under way in Mosul, about 74 miles east of Sinjar.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Gay rights advocates had reason to celebrate on both coasts Thursday, with New York set to recognize same-sex marriages performed elsewhere and California preparing to begin issuing marriage licenses to gay couples on June 17.

Hours after California issued a directive Wednesday authorizing that date, word came that New York Gov. David Paterson instructed state agencies — including those governing insurance and health care — to immediately change policies and regulations to recognize gay marriages.

For years, gay rights advocates have sought recognition for same-sex marriages so couples could share family health care plans, receive tax breaks by filing jointly, enjoy stronger adoption rights and inherit property.

MIANYANG, China (AP) — Chinese officials rushed Tuesday to evacuate another 80,000 people in the path of potential floodwaters building up behind a quake-spawned dam as soldiers carved a channel to try to drain away the threat.

The official Xinhua News Agency reported emergency workers would try to complete the evacuation by midnight Tuesday, taking the number of people moved out of the threatened valley to almost 160,000, from more than 30 townships.

The Tangjiashan lake in northern Sichuan province, formed when a massive landslide blocked a river, is one of dozens of fragile dams created during the earthquake that pose a new destructive threat in the disaster zone.

YANGON, Myanmar (AP) — Myanmar's military junta extended opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's detention by one year Tuesday, ignoring worldwide appeals to free the Nobel laureate who has been detained for more than 12 of the past 18 years.

The move came as officials said that international aid workers had finally begun entering Myanmar's cyclone-devastated delta area after being blocked for more than three weeks by the junta.

A government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press, said that Suu Kyi's detention was officially extended by one year on Tuesday afternoon.