UNITED NATIONS (CNN)- The United Nations Security Council Thursday passed a resolution to extend its peacekeeping mission in Darfur despite U.S. complaints about the resolution.

The resolution passed overwhelmingly, with all countries in the council voting for it, except the United States. A U.S. representative did not cast a vote, citing concerns about the wording of the resolution.

The one-year peacekeeping mandate was set to expire until Thursday's vote extended it.

HAVANA, Cuba (CNN) - Two players from Cuba's junior baseball team have defected in Edmonton, Canada, former Cuban President Fidel Castro said Thursday.

The defections of starting pitcher Noel Arguelles and shortstop Jose Juvenile - whose batting average is above .500 - occurred before play began in the 23rd World Junior AAA Championship, Castro said in a blog published on www.cubadebate.cu.

Castro, an ardent fan of the game, then detailed how the match went, noting that the replacement shortstop, Yandy Diaz, "played excellently" in the game, which Cuba won.

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (CNN) - President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner reiterated this week her call for decriminalization of drug use.

Though a poll shows just 2 percent of Argentinians have ever taken cocaine, some people believe that decriminalization of drugs could result in wider drug use.

Ethan Nadelmann, founder and executive director of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance, is not persuaded. "The evidence generally shows that the decriminalization of possession is not clearly associated with any increase in illicit drug use," he told CNN.

Meanwhile, the Argentine government wants Congress to pass the decriminalization legislation by the end of the year.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The Transportation Security Administration Thursday fired an employee it had hired after she'd been fired from a top job in Minnesota for unprofessional conduct following the collapse of the Interstate 35-West bridge.

Sonia Pitt was fired from her $84,600-a-year Minnesota state job last November only to sign on to the TSA for $89,900 seven months later.

Pitt, 44, became a highly publicized object of scorn in Minneapolis last year when it was disclosed that she failed to return to Minnesota immediately after the tragedy. Instead, Pitt finished a conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and took an unauthorized trip to Washington.

She returned to Minnesota about 11 days after the August 1, 2007, collapse.

From CNN's Maria Carolina Gonzalez

CARACAS, Venezuela (CNN) - A law passed 18 months ago by the Venezuelan National Assembly granting special powers to President Hugo Chavez has expired.

The powers, which allowed the leftist leader to legislate in different areas, including energy, taxes, territorial order, security and defense, were spelled out in the Venezuelan constitution for use in special situations or during times of crisis.

Since January 31, 2007, the Venezuelan leader has used them 38 times, exceeding the 28 laws passed by parliament during the same period.

From CNN's Kate Tobin

(CNN) - The Phoenix lander has successfully collected a tiny sample of ice from the surface of Mars and has begun to analyze it for signs of chemicals that could support life, NASA researchers announced Thursday.

Controllers have been trying to get an ice sample into a gas analyzer aboard the automated lander for weeks, struggling with a scraper and rasp on the probe's robotic arm that were designed to grind up the material for study, said Bill Boynton, part of the University of Arizona team running the project.

Eventually, however, they used a scoop on the arm to dig up a sample of dirt, about 1 percent of which contained ice, and loaded it into the analyzer successfully, he said.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - The amount of Washington-bound mail that is being irradiated to kill anthrax and other deadly pathogens has declined significantly since the U.S. Postal Service first began zapping mail seven years ago, government auditors told Congress Thursday.

But government offices' ingenuity in finding ways to circumvent the security procedure is partly responsible for the reduction, the Government Accountability Office said.

Some 23,700 containers of mail were irradiated per month in 2002 in the aftermath of the letter-born anthrax attack on Capitol Hill. But only 11,700 containers of mail were being irradiated every month in 2007, the GAO said.

From Justice Producer Terry Frieden

WASHINGTON (CNN) - A somber Sen. Ted Stevens spoke not a single word during his arraignment proceedings, nor on his way in or out of the federal courthouse.

It was Stevens' famed defense counsel Brendan Sullivan who entered the pro-forma not guilty plea on the 84-year old senator's behalf - even as the two were standing shoulder-to-shoulder before the judge.

Sullivan was the powerful attorney who memorably complained during the Iran-Contra hearings that he was "not a potted plant" and should be allowed to speak on behalf of his client Col. Oliver North.

This time, once again the center of official Washington's attention, Sullivan got to do all the talking, and the Alaska Republican was the "potted plant."

(CNN) - An al Qaeda "military leader" who escaped from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan in 2005 was killed in a recent U.S. air strike, according to a statement posted Thursday on radical Islamic Web sites known to carry messages from al Qaeda.

The statement, which called Abu Abdallah al-Shami a military leader and hero, did not say when or where he was killed.

The statement said al-Shami escaped from the U.S. prison in 2005 with a group of three others, including key al- Qaeda figure Omar al-Faruq. Faruq died in a British airstrike earlier.

WASHINGTON (CNN) - A congresswoman Thursday said her "jaw dropped" when military doctors told her that 4 in 10 women at a veterans hospital reported being sexually assaulted while in the military.

A government report indicates the numbers could be even higher.

Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, spoke before a House panel investigating the way the military handles reports of sexual assault.

She said she recently visited a Veterans Affairs hospital in the Los Angeles area where women told her horror stories of being raped in the military.