AP - With time and tempers short, everyone's playing hardball in the drive to pass — or stop — President Barack Obama's massive health care legislation by the weekend.

AP - Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress on Tuesday that Osama bin Laden will never face trial in the United States because he will not be captured alive.

AP - The United States and Israel stepped back Tuesday from their deepest rift in decades, a dispute over new Jewish homes in a traditionally Arab part of Jerusalem that quickly became a test of U.S. and Israeli commitment to peace talks and one another.

AP - Confused hit men may have gone to the wrong party, the FBI said Tuesday as it cast doubt on fears that the slaying of three people with ties to the U.S. consulate shows that Mexican drug cartels have launched an offensive against U.S. government employees.

AP - A woman championed as the Obama administration's emblem for health care reform does not have to choose between her home and her health, according to officials at the Ohio hospital where she is being treated.

AP - A secular coalition challenging the Iraqi prime minister in the country's historic parliamentary elections has narrowly pulled ahead for the first time in the overall vote count, although it still trails in the crucial province-by-province count.

AP - In a Hollywood-style heist, thieves cut a hole in the roof of a warehouse, rappelled inside and scored one of the biggest hauls of its kind — not diamonds, gold bullion or Old World art, but about $75 million in antidepressants and other prescription drugs.

AP - When a Tennessee jailer ripped the gold grill from a new inmate's teeth two days before Thanksgiving last year, it left the 31-year-old man in excruciating pain and left taxpayers on the hook for nearly $100,000 in damages.

AP - It's not every day you see a horse fly. But with the greatest of ease, a heavy-duty helicopter plucked a mustang named Colorado off a western Arizona river sandbar Tuesday morning, reuniting him with his owner.

AP - For Tiger Woods, this figures to be a Masters like no other. Woods said Tuesday he will end more than four months of seclusion and play at Augusta National in three weeks, shielded by the most secure environment in golf as he competes for the first time since a sex scandal shattered his image.

Reuters - Under heavy Republican attack, Democrats in the House of Representatives on Tuesday defended plans to pass a healthcare overhaul without a direct vote as President Barack Obama's top domestic priority neared a make-or-break showdown.

Reuters - Palestinians clashed with Israeli forces in Jerusalem on Tuesday as the United States, which has slammed Israeli settlement plans as undermining peace efforts, played down strains in its alliance with the Jewish state.

Reuters - The new financial reform bill introduced in the Senate will likely be approved at the committee level next week, but its shape could change substantially once it comes before the full Senate and winning Republican support comes into play, analysts said on Tuesday.

AFP - Hundreds of Palestinians clashed with Israeli security forces across east Jerusalem on Tuesday in the worst rioting in years, as a senior Hamas leader called for a new "intifada" or uprising.

AFP - Protesters spilled their own blood at the gates of Thailand's government headquarters Tuesday in a colourful act of political theatre designed to propel their fugitive hero back to power.