AP - North Korean leader Kim Jong Il greeted South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun in Pyongyang on Tuesday to begin the second summit between the two countries since the peninsula's division after World War II.
AP - A U.N. envoy met with Myanmar's military leader Tuesday in a bid to end the country's political crisis, as the junta's foreign minister defended a deadly crackdown on democracy advocates that has provoked global revulsion.
AP - Wall Street began the fourth quarter with a huge rally Monday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average to a record close. Stocks were buoyed by a growing belief that the worst of the credit crisis has passed.
The security firm at the center of a series of investigations into a deadly Baghdad battle used deadly force weekly in Iraq and have inflicted "significant casualties and property damage," according to a congressional staff report. Blackwater's use of force has been "frequent and extensive," the report says.
A strong earthquake rattled western Indonesia Tuesday morning, striking off the coast of Sumatra, the U.S. Geological Survey reported, prompting authorities to temporarily issue a tsunami alert.
A 10-year-old boy charged with arson and murder in the deaths of his mother and four others was released to the custody of his grandmother Monday in a case that has shocked and divided a small Ohio town.