AP - The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warned Tuesday that an American church's threat to burn copies of the Muslim holy book the Quran could endanger U.S. troops in the country and Americans worldwide.

Reuters - Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard's Labor Party looked close to retaining power on Tuesday after a pivotal independent lawmaker signaled the remaining two unaligned parliamentarians would support her.

AFP - The Roma minority are targets of a security crackdown in France, but an EU-funded project has given two dozen members of the community new jobs and new hope at a troubled time for gypsies.

AP - Oil prices fell to near $74 a barrel Tuesday in Asia as investors mull the strength of the U.S economy and demand for crude.

AFP - Deadly protests that paralysed Mozambique's capital last week were spurred by a text message that went viral on Maputo's cell phones, signalling the power of new technology in the hands of the poor.

AP - A wind-driven wildfire in the rugged Colorado foothills spread across 5 1/2 square miles Monday, destroying an unknown number of homes and triggering the evacuation of 1,000 others, authorities said.

AP - A sharp series of about 20 aftershocks rattled New Zealand's earthquake-hit city of Christchurch overnight, and earthquake experts warned Tuesday that another powerful temblor might hammer the region in coming days.

AP - Tropical Storm Hermine slammed into Mexico's northern Gulf coast near the U.S. border late Monday with winds of 60 mph (95 kph), lashing Mexico and southern Texas with heavy rains that authorities warned could cause flash flooding.

AP - Tropical Storm Hermine slammed into Mexico's northern Gulf coast near the U.S. border late Monday with winds of 60 mph (95 kph), lashing Mexico and southern Texas with heavy rains that authorities warned could cause flash flooding.

AP - Searchers on Monday pulled five more bodies from a mud-covered highway where back-to-back landslides buried bus passengers and then the people trying to save them. The deaths raised the confirmed toll from mudslides in Guatemala to 45 as torrential rains pounded the country.

AP - An imam who has become the public face of a proposed Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero has returned to the United States following a taxpayer-funded tour of the Middle East, his wife said Monday.

AP - An Indonesian volcano shot black ash three miles (5,000 meters) into the air early Tuesday — its most powerful eruption since springing back to life after four centuries of dormancy.

AP - A combative President Barack Obama rolled out a long-term jobs program Monday that would exceed $50 billion to rebuild roads, railways and runways, and coupled it with a blunt campaign-season assault on Republicans for causing Americans' hard economic times.

AP - A small plane crashed and burst into flames on a street in a southern Nevada residential neighborhood Monday, killing one person and badly injuring three others, authorities said.

AP - Jefferson Thomas was fast and athletic and often played pickup basketball with white students while growing up in Little Rock in the 1950s.

AP - Egypt's leading democracy advocate made a forceful call Monday for the nation to boycott November's parliamentary election, saying they were certain to be rigged and urging his young supporters to be patient and plan for a lengthy struggle.

AFP - US President Barack Obama Monday promised more than 50 billion dollars to create jobs rebuilding roads, railways and airports, targeting huge unemployment and ripping resurgent Republicans.

AP - The lawyer for an Iranian woman sentenced to be stoned on an adultery conviction said Monday that he and her children are worried the delayed execution could be carried out soon with the end of a moratorium on death sentences for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

AP - The Justice Department won't say if the blowout preventer that failed to stop oil from gushing from BP's undersea well into the Gulf of Mexico is on its way to shore.

AP - As New York Indian Nation leaders battle in courtrooms to preserve their tax-free cigarette market, tensions are rising on reservations, where the state's renewed efforts to tax sales to non-Native customers is viewed as yet another attack on Native American rights.

AP - Hallmark Cards Inc., a $4 billion empire built on a demand for printed sentimentality, enters its second century facing a weak economy and what could be an even greater challenge: a generation that has grown up posting its sentiments online.

AP - Hallmark Cards Inc., a $4 billion empire built on a demand for printed sentimentality, enters its second century facing a weak economy and what could be an even greater challenge: a generation that has grown up posting its sentiments online.

AP - More than 80 years ago, Germany sold tens of thousands of bonds to American investors in an effort to recover financially from World War I. Later, Adolf Hitler used some of the money raised by those bonds to build the powerful Nazi war machine that would ravage Europe during World War II.

AFP - Global stock markets rose and the dollar fell on Monday as investors further digested better-than-expected US jobs data which reduced prospects of a return to recession.

AFP - US President Barack Obama will travel to the Midwestern US state of Wisconsin Monday as part of a broad effort to stem ebbing political support over the slowing economic recovery.

AP - The USS Olympia, a one-of-a-kind steel cruiser that returned home to a hero's welcome after a history-changing victory in the Spanish-American War, is a proud veteran fighting what may be its final battle.