Credit cards offer promos, but is a gift certificate for a big card purchase really worth it? See answer to question No. 7 in the reader mailbag.

Gov.-elect Jerry Brown serves notice that he is serious about addressing California's chronic budget crisis, gathering state lawmakers to impress upon them the depth of the problem.

A Baltimore resident is charged with attempting to explode a car bomb at a military recruiting center. Undercover FBI operatives posed as militant Muslims to catch the recent convert.

AP - Slowly, painfully and reluctantly, congressional Democrats are slogging their way toward acceptance of President Barack Obama's tax cut compromise, which would let rich and poor Americans keep Bush-era tax cuts that were scheduled to expire this month.

AP - Wanna hear a secret? The U.S. and Canada are probably going to remain friends. And the conservative and liberal party leaders in England? They don't like each other.

AP - A popular singer vowed to legally challenge election results that narrowly ousted him from Haiti's presidential race, while his supporters barricaded streets and set fires in violence that threatened the fragile stability that followed a devastating Jan. 12 earthquake.