AP - Substantially improving the accuracy of hurricane intensity predictions could take years and tens of millions of dollars, the National Hurricane Center's director said Tuesday.

Reuters - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said on Tuesday that the global economy was being strained by costly energy but said U.S. economic fundamentals were sound.

AP - Pandas living in earthquake-hit southwest China are facing a food shortage and some have been evacuated to temporary shelters because of the threat of landslides and other hazards, an official said Tuesday.

AFP - Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region said it has signed two oil contracts with Canada's Talisman Energy despite Baghdad's stiff opposition to such deals before a national oil law is drawn up.

AFP - The 80-nation International Whaling Commission gathered here at its annual meeting Monday with its very existence at stake amid tension over Japan's perennial bid to resume commercial whale hunting.

AFP - Astronomical clues found in Homer's "The Odyssey" could help confirm a total solar eclipse when Odysseus returned home, providing a potentially accurate timeline for the fall of Troy, two scientists reported Monday.

Reuters - Divers found ghostly white bodies floating head up inside a sunken passenger ferry in the central Philippines on Tuesday raising fears of a mass grave below the waves.

AP - For the last three years, researchers in camouflage and waders have slogged through the east Arkansas woods hoping to spot a rare bird that so far seems unwilling to be seen.

AP - NASA told a Senate panel on Monday that it anticipates losing 3,000 to 4,000 jobs at its launching site once the space shuttles stop flying in two more years, about half the cutback initially reported.