AP - A Christian minister vowed Tuesday to go ahead with plans to burn copies of the Quran to protest the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks despite warnings from the White House and the top U.S. general in Afghanistan that doing so would endanger American troops overseas.

AP - Their control of the House in peril, Democrats are playing defense all across the country. Disgruntled voters, a sluggish economy and vanishing enthusiasm for President Barack Obama have put 75 seats or more - the vast majority held by Democrats - at risk of changing hands.

AP - Firefighters planned to ramp up their battle Tuesday against a wildfire that forced about 3,000 people to flee their homes as the wind-whipped blaze filled the surrounding canyon with heavy smoke and spit flames.

AP - The international crossfire over Iran's stoning sentence for a woman convicted of adultery intensified Tuesday with a top European Union official calling it "barbaric" and an Iranian spokesman saying it's about punishing a criminal and not a human rights issue.

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 - Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, who has presided over the nation's third-largest city for 21 years, announced Tuesday that he will not run for a seventh term.

AP - John Lennon's killer was again denied parole in New York, nearly 30 years after gunning down the ex-Beatle outside the musician's New York City apartment building.

Reuters - The United States does not plan to contribute to a NATO request for 2,000 troops for the Afghan war, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, even as the head of the alliance held out the possibility of U.S. participation.

Reuters - A suicide bomber rammed his car into a police residential complex in Pakistan on Tuesday, killing at least 20 people, officials said, in another blow for a country grappling with devastating floods.

Reuters - A U.S. government team will travel to Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing next week to discuss North Korea but has no plans to visit the poor, isolated state or meet its officials, the State Department said Tuesday.

Reuters - Republicans in the Congress showed little willingness to help President Barack Obama approve $350 billion worth of measures to boost the economy with midterm elections less than two months away.

Reuters - An explosion ripped through a major Mexican refinery on Tuesday, killing one worker and pushing gasoline and diesel prices higher on worries state oil monopoly Pemex will have to import more fuel.

AFP - Pakistan's devastating floods have left 10 million people without shelter, the United Nations said Tuesday, as authorities rushed to bolster river defences to save two towns from catastrophe.

AFP - Officials called off the search Tuesday for 15 people missing after deadly landslides in Guatemala, fearing fresh avalanches of mud after the heaviest rains in 60 years.