AP - The government turned up the pressure Tuesday on the head of a small Florida church who plans to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11, warning him that doing so could endanger U.S. troops and Americans everywhere.

AP - Their control of the House in peril, Democrats are scratching to survive in races all across the country. Disgruntled voters, a sluggish economy and vanishing enthusiasm for President Barack Obama have put 75 seats or more — the vast majority held by Democrats — at risk of changing hands.

AP - David Myers knew it was time to leave when he looked out into the forest and spotted bright red flames towering skyward. Then came a blinding cloud of smoke and a deafening roar as the fire ripped through the wilderness.

AP - Weeks of torrential rains have unleashed flooding in huge swaths of southern Mexico, forcing tens of thousands of people from their homes.

AP - Officials hoisted a 70-foot piece of World Trade Center steel at ground zero Tuesday and vowed to open the Sept. 11 memorial by next year, although they acknowledged that the ongoing construction at the site would limit where and how the public could visit.

AP - Fidel Castro criticized Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for what he called his anti-Semitic attitudes and questioned his own actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 during interviews with an American journalist he summoned to Havana to discuss fears of global nuclear war.

AP - Polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs on Tuesday refused to sign a waiver that would have allowed his extradition to Texas, where he faces bigamy, aggravated sexual assault and assault charges over alleged incidents with underage girls at a church ranch.

AP - Iraq displayed hundreds of recovered artifacts Tuesday that were among the country's looted heritage and span the ages from a 4,400-year-old statue of a Sumerian king to a chrome-plated AK-47 bearing Saddam Hussein's image.

AP - More AP Top 25 voters are buying into Boise State as the No. 1 team in the country. Boise State gained seven first-place votes and closed in on No. 1 Alabama and No. 2 Ohio State as the top three teams in the first regular season Associated Press football poll held their spots from the preseason.

Reuters - The United States does not plan to contribute to a NATO request for 2,000 troops for the Afghan war, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, even as the head of the alliance held out the possibility of U.S. participation.

Reuters - A suicide bomber rammed his car into a police residential complex in Pakistan on Tuesday, killing at least 20 people, officials said, in another blow for a country grappling with devastating floods.

Reuters - BP Plc's internal probe of the deadly April 20 blowout that unleashed the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill will assign blame to BP as well as other companies involved in the well's operations, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.

Reuters - A U.S. government team will travel to Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing next week to discuss North Korea but has no plans to visit the poor, isolated state or meet its officials, the State Department said Tuesday.

Reuters - Six months after Iraq held an election many hoped would usher in greater stability and peace, voters like Naseer Challoub are running out of patience with politicians, and also out of faith in democracy.

AFP - Pakistan's devastating floods have left 10 million people without shelter, the United Nations said Tuesday, as authorities rushed to bolster river defences to save two towns from catastrophe.

AFP - The toll from the heaviest rains in living memory in Guatemala and Mexico rose above 50, as Guatemalan officials called off the search for 15 more corpses because of safety fears.