AFP - US President George W. Bush heads to Europe Monday to ask leaders already sizing up the rivals to become his successor for more help for Afghanistan, more pressure on Iran, and more cooperation on climate change.

Reuters - Rescuers on Monday brought to the surface alive two miners missing after a gas explosion at a Ukrainian colliery, and tried to push down a ventilation shaft to find 34 of their missing comrades.

Reuters - The U.S. average price for a gallon of regular gasoline topped $4 for the first time, a survey issued on Sunday by the travel group AAA showed.

Reuters - Passers-by prayed and placed flowers on a busy Tokyo shopping street on Monday where seven people were killed the day before in a stabbing rampage, as Japan tried to make sense of the attack and others like it.

Reuters - Chinese officials have sent condolences and payments to parents of children killed in a school that crumpled in the country's huge earthquake, seeking to defuse outrage over shoddy buildings and claimed corruption.

AP - Shuttle Discovery's astronauts breezed through their third and final spacewalk Sunday, replacing an empty gas tank at the international space station and collecting a sample of dusty debris.

AP - A Chicago chef known for his ethereal cooking — as well as the tongue cancer that nearly ended his life — was named the nation's top chef Sunday by the James Beard Foundation.

AP - About 300 people turned out Sunday night for the local premiere of a documentary film about how this tiny town was turned upside down by a new neighbor — the president.

AP - A sailor is being praised as a hero for helping get five others to safety at the cost of his own life when a sailboat capsized during a regatta on the Gulf of Mexico.

AP - An additional 120 troops were sent Monday to help soldiers with explosives and anti-tank weapons blast rocks and mud slowing the drainage of a still-rising lake that threatened to flood more than 1 million people downstream.

AP - While many people will work on their tans this summer, or on summer reading lists or on not working too hard, two exceptions — John McCain and Barack Obama — and their underlings will be working.

AP - A man suspected of killing seven people in a knifing rampage foretold the mayhem in a series of messages posted on the Internet, including one just before the attack saying, "It's time," police and media reports said Monday.

AP - Fire investigators are asking for the public's help in identifying who may be to blame for a blaze that badly damaged the historic Texas Governor's Mansion.