AP - What began last month with the arrest of an opposition leader in Bahrain has mushroomed into a full-blown political offensive in the tiny Gulf nation with big fault lines: U.S.-allied Sunni rulers against members of a Shiite majority being cast as coup plotters who could open the door to Iranian influence.
Reuters - The U.S. economy appears to be trudging along, neither booming nor busting, growing steadily enough to diminish double-dip recession fears but not quickly enough to bring down unemployment.
Reuters - Debt levels that ran up ahead of the financial crisis have shown only a modest decline since and are likely to fall sharply in the coming years, a study said.
AP - A pilot of a small propeller-driven plane lost control of his aircraft while taking off at a flight show in southern Germany and crashed into a group of spectators Sunday, leaving one person dead and 38 injured, police said.
AP - A riverboat loaded with passengers and fuel drums caught fire and capsized in southern Congo, and 200 people were feared dead, a survivor said Sunday. Another survivor confirmed the account and said local fishermen refused to help drowning passengers who jumped off the crowded boat.
AFP - Teenage South Korean star Noh Seung-yul produced an impressive fourth place finish at the European Masters on Sunday to widen his lead on the Asian Tour's Order of Merit.
Time.com - No one really thinks much will come out of the direct talks with the Palestinians but, when the issue is Bibi, up come visions of Gorbachev -- and Nixon in China
Reuters - President Barack Obama will ask the Congress on Wednesday to increase and permanently extend a tax credit for business research as a way of boosting job growth, an administration officials said on Sunday.
AP - The yellow-green streaks of fireflies that bring a magical air to summer nights, inspire camp songs and often end up in jars in children's bedrooms may be flickering out in the nation's backyards as suburban sprawl encroaches on their habitats.
AP - Authorities have detained an alleged smuggler of an Ecuadorean man who told police he survived a massacre of 72 fellow migrants in Mexico, the justice minister confirmed Sunday.
AP - Israeli and Palestinian leaders plan talks with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Jerusalem this month. The setting is a symbolic move to show the seriousness of peace negotiations.
CQPolitics.com - Republican Senators on Sunday predicted widespread victories for their party in November, but Democratic Party operatives said they could keep their hold on Congress thanks to the same group of voters earning GOP praise: the tea party movement.
Time.com - Though Beijing's Forbidden City has been open to the public for decades, parts of it remained off-limits. This month a new exhibition of artifacts from behind the gates heads to U.S.
AP - The armed Basque separatist group ETA, under pressure from political allies to renounce violence and decapitated repeatedly by the arrests of its leaders, announced another cease-fire Sunday, suggesting it might turn to a political process in its quest for an independent homeland.
CQPolitics.com - Leading voices in both parties sparred Sunday over the state of the economy and the role that Bush tax cuts should play in the recovery.
CQPolitics.com - Leading voices in both parties sparred Sunday over the state of the economy and the role that Bush tax cuts should play in the recovery.
AP - Government officials from around the world used to come to this port city to catch a glimpse of the future: Two-story piles of trash would disappear into a furnace and eventually be transformed into electricity to power thousands of homes.
AP - Investigators looking into what went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are a step closer to answers now that a key piece of evidence is secure aboard a ship.
AP - Investigators looking into what went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are a step closer to answers now that a key piece of evidence is secure aboard a ship.
AP - Duong Nghe Ly can't wait to begin his senior year at South Philadelphia High School. A day of violence there last year changed his life, and he wants to learn if his school has been transformed as well.
AP - Government agencies are seeking broad new authority to ramp up killings and removals of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes, despite two recent court actions that restored the animal's endangered status in every state except Alaska and Minnesota.
AP - The Vatican raised the possibility Sunday of using behind-the-scenes diplomacy to try to save the life of an Iranian widow sentenced to be stoned for adultery.
AP - Torrential rains from a tropical depression caused mudslides that have killed at least 38 people in Guatemala — most of them in separate disasters along the same highway.
AP - The Taliban vowed Sunday to attack polling places in Sept. 18 parliamentary elections, warning Afghans not to participate in what it called a sham vote.
AP - It is a place of sacrifice. A place of mourning. A place people pass by on their way to grab lunch. It's a place where tourists crane their necks to snatch a glimpse around barriers walling off an enormous construction site — which is also what it is.
McClatchy Newspapers - NORLINA, N.C. — A few blocks from the restored antebellum homes that draw tourists to rural Warren County, wooden shacks sink into the sandy soil, their tin roofs bowing low, walls askew. Clothes hang on lines outside, limp under a stifling, late-summer sun.
Reuters - The U.S. government is likely to take a loss on General Motors Co in the first offering of the automaker's stock, six people familiar with preparations for the landmark IPO said.
The Atlantic Wire - The 'Brutal' Dem Plan for November The New York Times' Jeff Zeleny and Carl Hulse write,
"As Democrats brace for a November wave that threatens their control of
the House, party leaders are preparing a brutal triage of their own
members in hopes of saving enough seats to keep a slim grip on the
majority. In the next two weeks, Democratic leaders will review new
polls and other data that show whether vulnerable incumbents have a
path to victory. If not, the party is poised to redirect money to
concentrate on trying to protect up to two dozen lawmakers who appear
to be in the strongest position to fend off their challengers." In
other words, Democrats whose odds look unlikely are getting left behind.
AP - Craigslist appears to have surrendered in a legal fight over erotic ads posted on its website, shutting down its adult services section Saturday and replacing it with a black bar that simply says "censored."
AP - The powerful earthquake that smashed buildings, cracked roads and twisted rail lines around the New Zealand city of Christchurch also ripped a new fault line in the Earth's surface, a geologist said Sunday.
AP - For more than half a century, Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Paul Conrad poked fun at politicians, taking on presidents from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush.
AFP - Japan's top minicar maker Suzuki Motor Corp. is to build a new auto assembly plant near the Indian capital New Delhi in a bid to meet growing demand in the country, a newspaper reported on Sunday.
AP - American Muslims are boosting security at mosques, seeking help from leaders of other faiths and airing ads underscoring their loyalty to the United States — all ahead of a 9/11 anniversary they fear could bring more trouble for their communities.
Reuters - The world economy is recovering moderately but still faces challenges such as the need for medium-term fiscal consolidation, the IMF's First Managing Director, John Lipsky, said on Sunday.
AP - For more than two hours on the night of May 16, 2007, Shane Maggi terrorized a Native American couple at their home on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana, pistol whipping them and firing bullets above the husband's head.