Unable to agree on who should be eligible to continue to receive the Bush tax cuts, which expire Jan. 1, President Obama and congressional leaders decided to convene a panel Tuesday.
The secrecy around Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s selection of Cathleen P. Black to run the city’s schools highlighted his faith in business leaders and dislike of public debate.
Starting Thursday, Wal-Mart plans to offer free shipping on its Web site, a move that may create an expectation among consumers and a threat to smaller retailers.
AP - The government scrambled Tuesday to prevent future spills of U.S. secrets like the embarrassing WikiLeaks' disclosures, while officials pondered possible criminal prosecutions and Interpol in Europe sent out a "red notice" for nations to be on the lookout for the website's founder.
AP - Heralding a new era of divided government, President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans pledged warily to seek common ground on tax cuts and reduced spending Tuesday in their first meeting since tumultuous midterm elections.
AP - Gay troops can serve openly in the armed forces without harming the military's ability to fight, the Pentagon's top leaders declared Tuesday, calling for the 17-year-old "don't ask, don't tell" ban to be scrapped and pointing to a new survey to show most troops won't mind.
Mohamed Osman Mohamud, the Somali-American college student charged with plotting an attack on a Christmas lighting event in Portland, Oregon, was in contact with, and wrote articles for, another prominent American al Qaeda propagandist for nearly two years, authorities say. Mohamud, who was arrested in an FBI sting, is accused of attempting to detonate what he believed to be a car bomb in Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square via cellphone during the annual lighting of the Christmas tree last Friday, which had drawn a crowd of thousands. The supposed explosive device was non-functional . Mohamud, 19, pled not guilty in federal court Monday to one count of an attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.
Interpol has put WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on its most-wanted list, at the request of a Swedish court looking into alleged sex crimes from earlier this year.
Russia will have to build up its nuclear forces if the United States fails to ratify the New START arms treaty the two countries signed this year, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warns in an upcoming CNN interview.
President Barack Obama is considering at least a short delay to the start of his holiday vacation in Hawaii so he can try to work out a deal with congressional Republicans on the Bush tax cuts that expire December 31, CNN has learned.
![[logo]](http://graphics.nytimes.com/images/section/NytSectionHeader.gif "NYT > Home Page")
![[logo]](http://l.yimg.com/a/i/us/nws/th/main_142c.gif "Yahoo! News")
![[logo]](http://a.abcnews.com/images/site/abcnews_google_rss_logo.png "ABC News: International"){kind=logo}
![[logo]](http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/img/1.0/logo/cnn.logo.rss.gif "CNN.com"){kind=logo}
