AFP - US President George W. Bush on Tuesday looked to persuade European leaders to tighten the squeeze on Iran's finances, a central message of what was likely his farewell tour of the continent.

Reuters - Turkish warplanes attacked northern Iraq on Monday, Iraqi security officials said on Tuesday, bombing a mountainous area that is home to rebel Kurdish separatists.

Reuters - Floodwaters crashed out of a dangerously unstable "quake lake" in southwest China on Tuesday after soldiers blasted open a sluice, significantly easing the threat of disaster for hundreds of thousands of people downstream.

Reuters - A hardline Islamist leader rejected on Tuesday a U.N.-brokered peace pact signed in Djibouti by the Somali government and some opposition figures, and vowed that the war would continue.

Reuters - South Korea's entire cabinet offered to resign on Tuesday in the face of massive street protests, as its increasingly unpopular president warned that Asia's fourth-largest economy could be heading into crisis.

Reuters - The Bush administration is asking Congress for an increase of $275 million above its current budget request to enhance federal food safety programs, U.S. Health Secretary Michael Leavitt said on Monday.

Reuters - Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain share a dislike of rough-edged U.S. politics. Each tried to talk her spouse out of running for the White House.

Reuters - Economists have trimmed forecasts for U.S. growth in the second half of this year and in 2009, but more have come to the view that the United States will dodge a recession, a survey released on Tuesday showed.

Reuters - Iranian Defence Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar was quoted on Tuesday as warning Israel of a "very painful" response if it launched a military strike over the Islamic Republic's disputed nuclear program.

AP - Tori Spelling and husband Dean McDermott are parents again.

AP - Oil slipped in Asia on Tuesday, but traders saying prices could climb higher amid concerns over supplies, growing global demand and other geopolitical issues.

AP - McDonald's, Wal-Mart and other U.S. chains have halted sales of some raw tomatoes as federal health officials work to trace the source of a multistate salmonella food poisoning outbreak.

AP - Democrat Barack Obama on Monday seized on heightened concerns about the economy, tying John McCain to the Bush administration's recent record of soaring gasoline prices and slumping employment.

AP - In his 1 1/2 years as Pentagon chief, Robert Gates has made a mark by sacking leaders of the military services at a pace not seen before in the modern era of the U.S. military.