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

AP - Hundreds of Iraqi artifacts looted from museums and archaeological sites across the country — including a 4,400-year-old statue of an ancient king stolen during the U.S.-led invasion — have been returned to Iraq and were displayed Tuesday.

AP - Fresh worries Tuesday about the health of European banks sent stocks lower in the U.S.

AP - President Barack Obama will call on Congress to pass new tax breaks that would allow businesses to write off 100 percent of their new capital investments through 2011, the latest in a series of proposals the White House is rolling out in hopes of showing action on the economy ahead of the November elections.

AFP - A tense maritime incident Tuesday in which two Japanese patrol vessels and a Chinese fishing boat collided near a disputed island chain triggered a diplomatic spat between the Asian giants.

AFP - Mozambique will reverse an increase in the price of bread that sparked deadly rioting last week, and restore some subsidies for electricity and water, the planning minister said Tuesday.

AFP - Republicans in the US Congress may be able to handle the country's struggling economy better than President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats, according to a new national poll released Tuesday.

AP - Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he has asked the U.S. to settle a dispute with Israel over settlement expansion that is threatening to derail Mideast peace talks.

AP - Tropical Storm Hermine began to lose its punch as it pushed north Tuesday, after causing landslides in northeast Mexico and leaving one Texas town almost entirely without power.

AP - Australian writer Peter Carey moved closer to a literary hat trick Tuesday when he was named a finalist for fiction's prestigious Booker Prize, an award he has already won twice.

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 - The crowded rooftop bleachers overlooking Wrigley Field stand as proof that no matter how bad the Chicago Cubs played, the ballpark was simply not big enough to hold everyone who wanted to see them play.

AFP - Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard retained power by a tiny, one-seat majority Tuesday after winning the backing of two key independent MPs in the first hung parliament in decades.

AP - Strikes hobbled public transit across France and in London on Tuesday, with tourists and commuters bearing the brunt of a wave of discontent over government austerity measures.

AP - Hipsters, hustlers, celebrities, thieves, dope peddlers and just about everyone else in gritty, quirky Venice Beach know Boston Dawna. You can't miss the one-woman crime fighter.

AFP - US President Barack Obama has pledged 50 billion dollars to create jobs in a massive transportation infrastructure campaign, targeting huge unemployment and ripping resurgent Republicans.

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.

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 - 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.