AP - With the recession dragging down consumer prices and home construction, the Federal Reserve is prepared to slash a key interest rate — perhaps to an all-time low — in a desperate bid to stem the country's economic slide.

AP - President-elect Barack Obama announced Arne Duncan, the head of the Chicago school system, as education secretary Tuesday and declared that failing to improve classroom instruction is "morally unacceptable for our children."

AP - Police acting on a warning Tuesday found a bundle of dynamite inside a Paris department store at the height of the Christmas season, and a group demanding that France withdraw from Afghanistan claimed responsibility.