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AP - A suicide bomber detonated a car in an alley behind a police station in a strategically vital town in northwest Pakistan on Monday, killing at least 17 police and civilians in an explosion that shattered the station and neighboring homes, police said.

Reuters - A suicide bomber rammed his car into a police station in northwest Pakistan Monday killing at least 17 people, police said, in the third in a string of attacks by al Qaeda- and Taliban-linked militants over the last week.

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 - Iraqi security forces were under the spotlight Monday after a coordinated suicide attack on an army complex killed 12 people, with US troops among those who fired back in a bid to repel the operation.

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.

Reuters - Increasingly erratic rainfall patterns related to climate change pose a major threat to food security and economic growth, water experts said on Monday, arguing for greater investment in water storage.

AP - The yellow-green streaks of fireflies that bring a magical air to summer nights, inspire camp songs and often end up in jars in children's bedrooms may be flickering out in the nation's backyards as suburban sprawl encroaches on their habitats.

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 - 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 - 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 Basque rebel group ETA called a halt to armed attacks on Sunday but the government said the declaration was not enough and urged the weakened organization to renounce violence once and for all.

Reuters - Up to six suicide bombers, some armed with rifles, tried to storm an army base in Baghdad on Sunday, killing 12 people and wounding 36 less than a week after Washington declared U.S. combat operations in Iraq over.

AP - Whenever companies start hiring freely again, job-seekers with specialized skills and education will have plenty of good opportunities. Others will face a choice: Take a job with low pay — or none at all.

Reuters - Oracle Corp has offered a job to Mark Hurd, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co who resigned amid a scandal involving inaccurate expense receipts related to a female contractor, according to a source familiar with the situation.

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 - 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.

Reuters - Strong aftershocks and gale-force winds buffeted New Zealand's second biggest city on Sunday as a clean-up got underway following the country's worst earthquake in 80 years.

AP - The powerful earthquake that smashed buildings, cracked roads and twisted rail lines around the New Zealand city of Christchurch also ripped a new 11-foot (3.5 meter) wide fault line in the earth's surface, a geologist said Sunday.