AFP - More than six in ten Japanese want Prime Minister Naoto Kan to win his party leadership battle with powerbroker Ichiro Ozawa, polls showed Monday.

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.

AFP - Germany will extend the life of its 17 nuclear reactors by 12 years on average, Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen announced Monday after marathon talks on the controversial issue.

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.

Reuters - A state of emergency after a 7.1 magnitude earthquake is keeping much of New Zealand's second-biggest city shut on Monday but financial markets have mostly shrugged off the quake as the long-term economic impact is seen limited.

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 - How do you get penny pinchers to spend these days? Pitch products that promise to save them money.

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.

AP - A suicide car-bomber killed three soldiers and wounded 32 others in an attack on a military base in Russia's violence-plagued republic of Dagestan on Sunday, officials said.

AP - While a fire warms their campsite, the icy feeling between Cristina Nunez Macias and her mother-in-law is as palpable as the cold Atacama desert.

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.

Reuters - President Barack Obama will ask the Congress on Wednesday to increase and permanently extend a tax credit for business research as a way of boosting job growth, an administration officials said on Sunday.

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 - 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 - Seeking ways to spur economic growth ahead of the November elections, President Barack Obama will ask Congress to increase and permanently extend research and development tax credits for businesses, a White House official said Sunday.

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

AFP - US lawmakers returning from summer recess face a conundrum on tax cuts set to expire at the end of this year, with the economy seemingly sputtering ahead of looming congressional elections.

AP - For more than half a century, Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Paul Conrad poked fun at politicians, taking on presidents from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush.

AP - American Muslims are boosting security at mosques, seeking help from leaders of other faiths and airing ads underscoring their loyalty to the United States — all ahead of a 9/11 anniversary they fear could bring more trouble for their communities.

AP - In the end, Earl's worst damage in New England was to seasonal businesses hoping to end their summer on a high note.

Reuters - The world economy is recovering moderately but still faces challenges such as the need for medium-term fiscal consolidation, the IMF's First Managing Director, John Lipsky, said on Sunday.

AP - For more than two hours on the night of May 16, 2007, Shane Maggi terrorized a Native American couple at their home on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana, pistol whipping them and firing bullets above the husband's head.

Reuters - President Barack Obama, previewing a big push on the U.S. economy next week, on Saturday defended policies that he said "have stopped the bleeding" and put the middle class on the road to recovery.

AP - Sarah Palin can take down the fence. Palin's neighbor of three months on Wasilla's Lake Lucille, author Joe McGinniss, is packing his bags and notebooks and leaving Sunday for his home in Massachusetts to write the book he has been researching on the former governor and GOP vice presidential candidate.

AP - A strong economy needs bustling Main Streets and a thriving middle class, not just a healthy stock market, President Barack Obama said in paying tribute to the American worker.