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The Secret Service said in a statement the White House was closed as a precaution as emergency crews investigated, and local fire officials determined that the substance was not hazardous.

This year's Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to two American researchers, Andrew Fire of Stanford University and Craig Mello of the University of Massachusetts. The pair, who discovered how to selectively silence genes that cause disease, will share the $1.4 million prize.

No longer restrained by a a government gag order, the Army Reservist who turned over pictures of inmate mistreatment at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison to military investigators is discussing publicly his decision to disclose the abuse.

The nation's unemployment rate is at its the highest level since 1983. The jobless rate for February stands at 8.1 percent after employers slashed 651,000 jobs. Both figures were worse than what analysts had expected. Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost 4.4 million jobs.

In China, rescue workers have been digging through flattened homes and schools in a desperate search for victims of China's worst earthquake in three decades. Mark Magnier, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, says "with each passing hour, it's getting more and more difficult."

Melissa Block, one of two NPR correspondents who were in China at the time the earthquake struck, visited a school Monday where hundreds of children are feared dead. She recounts the scene where dozens of families, "heads bowed in unspeakable pain," sat with young, lifeless victims.

Throughout the Democratic race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, issues of race and gender have arisen in controversial ways. The latest: Geraldine Ferraro's comment to a California newspaper that "(i)f Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position." She subsequently quit her position with the Clinton campaign.

Geraldine Ferraro has given up her position on the finance committee of Sen. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign in the wake of a controversial remark about Sen. Barack Obama.

As Pope Benedict XVI continues his first visit to the United States as pontiff, he met Thursday with victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. Other victims were outraged that the pope would meet with such a small, hand-picked group.

The U.S. dollar hit an all-time low against the Euro on Thursday. The dollar's slide followed comments by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that he's prepared to lower interest rates again.