AP - North Korea's ruling communist party members gathered in Pyongyang ahead of their largest political conference in 30 years, state media reported Monday, amid predictions that leader Kim Jong Il would use the meeting to give a key ruling party position to one of his sons.

Reuters - President Barack Obama launches several economic initiatives this week aimed at generating some desperately needed U.S. job growth and limiting predicted Democratic losses in November 2 congressional elections.

AFP - The death toll from an attack Monday by a suicide car bomber on a police post in northwest Pakistan has risen to 14, with 34 wounded, police said.

AFP - Pakistan's latest match in their controversial tour of Britain ended in a five-wicket Twenty20 defeat by world champions England at Sophia Gardens here on Sunday.

Reuters - President Barack Obama launches several economic initiatives this week aimed at generating some desperately needed U.S. job growth and limiting predicted Democratic losses in November 2 congressional elections.

AP - A suicide car bomb attack on a police station in northwest Pakistan killed at least 14 people Monday and wounded about 40, police said.

AP - In the turbulent year of the tea party, Republican Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware set out to jangle no nerves as he ran for a Senate seat long held by Vice President Joseph Biden. It's the way Republican strategists originally envisioned 2010, a roster of seasoned politicians pointing the party toward significant gains in the Senate.

AP - The Black Widow of eating contests gobbled up nearly 181 chicken wings in 12 minutes, devouring the national championship record in Buffalo on Sunday.

Exclusive to Yahoo! News - Just how bad could things get for the Democrats when voters head to the polls in November?

AP - Army troops took control of the center of the New Zealand city of Christchurch on Monday, two days after a powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake smashed buildings and homes, wrecked roads and rail lines — but caused no loss of life.

AP - A third man survived last month's massacre of 72 migrants by suspected drug traffickers in Mexico and is now in the United States, Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes said Sunday.

AP - Craiglist's "adult services" section has been shut down in the U.S., but prostitution on the Internet is alive and well — even, quite possibly, on Craigslist.

AP - Torrential rains from a tropical depression caused landslides that have killed at least 38 people in Guatemala — some of them rescuers trying to save people already buried under a wall of mud.

AP - Two boats capsized over the weekend in separate incidents on Congo's vast rivers, leaving 70 people dead and 200 others feared dead, and both vessels were heavily loaded and operating with few safety measures, officials said Sunday.

AP - A flight attendant who captured America's attention when he told off a plane full of passengers and then slid down an emergency chute resigned from his job last week and wasn't fired, his lawyer said Sunday.

AFP - More than a dozen vehicles including three fuel tankers and two mini-buses caught fire Sunday in a pile-up on a Nigerian highway, site of a deadly multi-car crash three weeks ago, an AFP photographer reported.

AP - Iran's president said Sunday that any Israeli attack against his nation would mean the destruction of the Jewish state.

AP - Days after the U.S. officially ended combat operations and touted Iraq's ability to defend itself, American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday. The fighting killed 12 people and wounded dozens.

Reuters - The U.S. economy appears to be trudging along, neither booming nor busting, growing steadily enough to diminish double-dip recession fears but not quickly enough to bring down unemployment.

AP - Israeli and Palestinian leaders plan talks with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Jerusalem this month. The setting is a symbolic move to show the seriousness of peace negotiations.

AP - Government officials from around the world used to come to this port city to catch a glimpse of the future: Two-story piles of trash would disappear into a furnace and eventually be transformed into electricity to power thousands of homes.

AP - Investigators looking into what went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are a step closer to answers now that a key piece of evidence is secure aboard a ship.

AP - Investigators looking into what went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are a step closer to answers now that a key piece of evidence is secure aboard a ship.

AP - Duong Nghe Ly can't wait to begin his senior year at South Philadelphia High School. A day of violence there last year changed his life, and he wants to learn if his school has been transformed as well.

AP - Government agencies are seeking broad new authority to ramp up killings and removals of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes, despite two recent court actions that restored the animal's endangered status in every state except Alaska and Minnesota.

AP - It is a place of sacrifice. A place of mourning. A place people pass by on their way to grab lunch. It's a place where tourists crane their necks to snatch a glimpse around barriers walling off an enormous construction site — which is also what it is.

AP - Motivated by the deaths of two friends in war-zone explosions, 1st Lt. Timothy Dwyer decided to become a bomb hunter.