AP - An unemployed man with an advanced finance degree who was despondent over his own financial problems shot and killed his wife, three children, mother-in-law and then himself in an upscale home in a gated community, police said.

AP - Riot police using tear gas clashed Tuesday with several thousand protesters who barricaded Parliament while trying to block Thailand's new prime minister from delivering his first policy speech to lawmakers. Scores of protesters were injured.

AP - GOP presidential nominee John McCain has past connections to a private group that supplied aid to guerrillas seeking to overthrow the leftist government of Nicaragua in the Iran-Contra affair.

AP - The government is weighing a bold plan to buy massive amounts of unsecured short-term debts in a dramatic effort to break through a credit clog that is imperiling the economy.

AP - Asian markets showed signs of life Tuesday as investors cheered a big interest rate cut by the Australian central bank aimed at alleviating the unfolding global credit crisis that has battered global markets.

AFP - Global stock markets reeled Monday, shaken by massive sell-offs by panicked investors who fear a much-vaunted US finance sector bailout will fail to end a crippling credit crisis.

AFP - Desperate new measures by governments in Europe and North America to stabilise the financial system failed to stop panic selling that swept global markets Monday amid deepening gloom at the scope of the banking crisis.

Reuters - Two French scientists who discovered the AIDS virus and a German who bucked conventional wisdom to find a virus that causes cervical cancer were awarded the 2008 Nobel prize for medicine on Monday.

Reuters - Oil dropped $6 to below $88 a barrel on Monday on expectations the growing financial crisis will further slow already faltering global fuel demand.

Reuters - A top U.S. regulator forecast Wachovia Corp's fate would be settled by the end of Monday as Wells Fargo & Co and Citigroup battled over bids to acquire the struggling bank.