Thousands of inmates escaped prisons across Egypt on Sunday, including at least one jail that housed Muslim militants northwest of Cairo, adding to the chaos engulfing the country as anti-government protests continue to demand the ouster of longtime authoritarian President Hosni Mubarak.

Security officials said the prisoners escaped overnight from four jails after starting fires and clashing with guards. The inmates were helped by gangs of armed men who attacked the prisons, firing at guards in gunbattles that lasted hours.

Modern humans may have left Africa thousands of years earlier than previously thought, turning right and heading across the Red Sea into Arabia rather than following the Nile to a northern exit, an international team of researchers says.

Stone tools discovered in the United Arab Emirates indicate the presence of modern humans between 100,000 and 125,000 years ago, the researchers report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

Escalating protests in Egypt jarred world financial markets on Friday. Stocks fell while the dollar, Treasuries and gold rose as investors sought to reduce their exposure to risk.

The Egyptian government's response to widespread street protests unnerved investors. The military was deployed in an effort to quell the protests and the headquarters of the ruling party was on fire. Thousands of people defied a curfew, and Internet and cell phone service has been cut off.

An alcohol-detection prototype that uses automatic sensors to instantly gauge a driver's fitness to be on the road has the potential to save thousands of lives, but could be as long as a decade away from everyday use in cars, federal officials and researchers said Friday.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood visited QinetiQ North America, a Waltham, Mass.-based research and development facility, for the first public demonstration of systems that could measure whether a motorist has a blood alcohol content at or above the legal limit of .08 and — if so — prevent the vehicle from starting.

A bomb exploded inside a grocery store frequented by foreigners on Friday in Kabul, killing at least eight people and injuring others, police and eyewitnesses said.

Three foreigners and a child were among the dead, Kabul Police Chief Mohammad Ayub Salangi told reporters at the scene.

For those not acquainted with the phrase "yellow journalism," it refers to sensationalizing the news with overly dramatic headlines intended to grab readers and sell the most papers.

That's the subject of "What The Public Wants," a comedy by Arnold Bennett that satirizes tabloid journalism in 1906 London. The play opened Thursday night at the Mint Theater in a witty, well-acted production; director Matthew Arbour is faithful to the original material, which is clever and surprisingly contemporary more than a hundred years after Bennett wrote it.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made a "historic mistake" by rebuffing a peace offer made during negotiations in 2008.

Excerpts from an upcoming memoir by Olmert were published Friday in the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot.

Oil prices hovered below $86 a barrel Friday in Asia, dragged lower by weak economic and earnings news.

Benchmark crude for March delivery was down 7 cents at $85.57 a barrel at late afternoon Bangkok time in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela was starting his third day in a Johannesburg hospital Friday, but the South African government says there is no need to panic.

In a statement late Thursday, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe offered no specifics on why Mandela, 92, was taken to the hospital Wednesday, but said he was undergoing specialized tests.

Thousands of curious onlookers are flocking to central Indonesia to look at a "crop circle" in a rice field following rumors it was formed by a UFO.

Though clearly sculptured by humans — it looks like an intricately designed flower — the 70-yard-wide (70-meter-wide) circle has drawn so much attention that police have blocked off the area with yellow tape.