Obama: No pork in stimulus bill

President-elect Barack Obama says he will bar pork-barrel projects from the massive economic stimulus bill he wants Congress to pass.

No effort to seat Franken in Senate Tuesday

On Nov. 5, Norm Coleman stood before TV cameras, declaring victory and saying if he were opponent Al Franken he'd "step back." Now Coleman finds himself down by nearly the same margin.

Bush creates huge marine sanctuaries

Announcing the largest marine conservation effort in history, President George W. Bush on Tuesday designated three remote Pacific island areas as national monuments.

Pending home sales hit record low

Pending sales of existing U.S. homes dropped to a seven-year low in November, data showed on Tuesday.

Rise in monoxide poisonings feared

Power outages spurred by the combination of bad weather and utility shutoffs in a bad economy could boost cases of carbon monoxide poisonings this year, health officials fear.

Baby's corpse thrown out with hospital's trash
Police are searching garbage dumps in New Jersey and Pennsylvania for the body of a baby that was apparently thrown out with the trash at a Jersey City hospital.

U.N.: 30 die in strike near Gaza school

Red Cross warns 500,000 civilians in danger; Israel rejects calls for truce.

Indian airline fires 9 overweight crew members
Nine flight attendants who couldn't meet the weight standards of India's national airlines have been fired, an official said Tuesday.

Burris rejected in bid for Senate seat

Roland Burris failed in his bid to take President-elect Barack Obama's Illinois Senate seat on Tuesday in a scripted piece of political theater staged just before the opening of the 111th Congress.

War tactics used against Rio gangs
Police are using counterinsurgency tactics in battle against gangs in Brazil's favelas, or slums.