AP - Turns out politics, for all its focus on the gloomy economy, is a recession-proof industry.

AP - A wind-whipped wildfire sent flames roaring through a rugged canyon in the Colorado foothills, forcing about 3,000 people to flee the area and destroying dozens of homes — some that belonged to the firefighters themselves, authorities said Tuesday.

AP - A former JetBlue flight attendant accused of cursing out a passenger and sliding down an emergency exit chute will be mentally evaluated for a possible plea deal.

Reuters - Change swept through the top of Britain's banks on Tuesday as Barclays said its investment banking supremo Bob Diamond will take over as chief executive and HSBC said its chairman is leaving to go into government.

Reuters - China wants to quell tensions with the United States through quiet talk, not shouting matches, a top diplomat told White House advisers on Tuesday, aiming to pave the way for a visit by President Hu Jintao early next year.

Reuters - Wall Street dropped on Tuesday, with the S&P 500 briefly falling 1 percent, after reports on the European banking system reignited concerns about the financial stability of the region.

AP - President Barack Obama will call on Congress to pass new tax breaks that would allow businesses to write off 100 percent of their new capital investments through 2011, the latest in a series of proposals the White House is rolling out in hopes of showing action on the economy ahead of the November elections.

AP - President Barack Obama will call on Congress to pass new tax breaks that would allow businesses to write off 100 percent of their new capital investments through 2011, the latest in a series of proposals the White House is rolling out in hopes of showing action on the economy ahead of the November elections.

AP - A Somali-born Norwegian citizen pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of sending over $30,000 to top leaders of an al-Qaida-linked Somali militant group at the start of the first trial under Norway's 2002 terror financing law.

Reuters - Silicon Valley technology giant Oracle Corp has hired Mark Hurd, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co who resigned amid a scandal, as president.

AFP - Republicans in the US Congress may be able to handle the country's struggling economy better than President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats, according to a new national poll released Tuesday.

AP - Half-buried in rubble, Bazelais Suy struggled to breathe — a dead woman lay on his chest. He knew he had to get her off, fast. Because he could still move his arms, he somehow managed to remove his belt, loop it around the woman's own belt and drag her off. But his legs were still pinned.

AP - European Union nations agreed to create new financial oversight institutions Tuesday, hoping to prevent a repeat of the government debt crisis that nearly left Greece bankrupt and brought the European banking system to its knees.

AP - Tropical Storm Hermine began to lose its punch as it pushed north Tuesday, after causing landslides in northeast Mexico and leaving one Texas town almost entirely without power.

AP - An imam who has become the public face of a proposed Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero has returned to the United States following a taxpayer-funded tour of the Middle East, his wife said Monday.

AP - An imam who has become the public face of a proposed Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero has returned to the United States following a taxpayer-funded tour of the Middle East, his wife said Monday.

AP - The crowded rooftop bleachers overlooking Wrigley Field stand as proof that no matter how bad the Chicago Cubs played, the ballpark was simply not big enough to hold everyone who wanted to see them play.

AP - Hipsters, hustlers, celebrities, thieves, dope peddlers and just about everyone else in gritty, quirky Venice Beach know Boston Dawna. You can't miss the one-woman crime fighter.

AFP - US President Barack Obama has pledged 50 billion dollars to create jobs in a massive transportation infrastructure campaign, targeting huge unemployment and ripping resurgent Republicans.

AP - Oil prices fell to near $74 a barrel Tuesday in Asia as investors mull the strength of the U.S. economy and demand for crude.

AP - A determined Republican stall campaign in the Senate has sidetracked so many of the men and women nominated by President Barack Obama for judgeships that he has put fewer people on the bench than any president since Richard Nixon at a similar point in his first term 40 years ago.

AP - A combative President Barack Obama rolled out a long-term jobs program Monday that would exceed $50 billion to rebuild roads, railways and runways, and coupled it with a blunt campaign-season assault on Republicans for causing Americans' hard economic times.