AFP - Britain's position in an international graduate league table has plummeted, as spending cuts threaten to cast a further blow to higher education, a report showed Tuesday.

AP - A Japanese journalist held hostage in Afghanistan for five months managed to send out a message via Twitter that he was alive when his captors asked him how to use a cell phone.

AP - A government official says a large explosion has ripped through a police compound in a northwestern Pakistani city.

AP - The top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan warned Tuesday an American church's threat to burn copies of the Muslim holy book could endanger U.S. troops in the country and Americans worldwide.

AP - Strikes hobbled public transit across France and in London on Tuesday, forcing tourists and commuters to alter their plans as they bore the brunt of a wave of discontent over government cost-cutting measures — a wave expected to soon prompt walkouts elsewhere on the continent.

AP - A key aide to Prime Minister David Cameron will be questioned by police over allegations a major British tabloid illegally eavesdropped on politicians and celebrities — including the British princes, a senior Scotland Yard officer said Tuesday.

AP - President Barack Obama will call on Congress to pass new tax breaks that would allow businesses to write off 100 percent of their new capital investments through 2011, the latest in a series of proposals the White House is rolling out in hopes of showing action on the economy ahead of the November elections.

Reuters - Stocks opened lower on Tuesday pressured by fresh concerns about Europe's financial stability.

AP - A Somali-born Norwegian citizen pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges of sending over $30,000 to top leaders of an al-Qaida-linked Somali militant group at the start of the first trial under Norway's 2002 terror financing law.

Reuters - Change swept through the top of Britain's banks on Tuesday as Barclays said its investment banking supremo Bob Diamond will take over as chief executive and HSBC said its chairman is leaving to go into government.

Reuters - Silicon Valley technology giant Oracle Corp has hired Mark Hurd, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard Co who resigned amid a scandal, as president.

AP - Half-buried in rubble, Bazelais Suy struggled to breathe — a dead woman lay on his chest. He knew he had to get her off, fast. Because he could still move his arms, he somehow managed to remove his belt, loop it around the woman's own belt and drag her off. But his legs were still pinned.

AP - European Union nations agreed to create new financial oversight institutions Tuesday, hoping to prevent a repeat of the government debt crisis that nearly left Greece bankrupt and brought the European banking system to its knees.

AP - Tropical Storm Hermine began to lose its punch as it pushed north Tuesday, after causing landslides in northeast Mexico and leaving one Texas town almost entirely without power.

Time.com - Nine weeks before the midterm elections, Barack Obama finds himself on the wrong side of the polls. Where did all that adoration go -- and is a Republican sweep next?

AP - An imam who has become the public face of a proposed Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero has returned to the United States following a taxpayer-funded tour of the Middle East, his wife said Monday.

AP - An imam who has become the public face of a proposed Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero has returned to the United States following a taxpayer-funded tour of the Middle East, his wife said Monday.

AFP - World oil prices fell on Tuesday as the market reacted to the end of the peak demand season coming at a time when supplies are high, analysts said.

AP - The crowded rooftop bleachers overlooking Wrigley Field stand as proof that no matter how bad the Chicago Cubs played, the ballpark was simply not big enough to hold everyone who wanted to see them play.

AFP - Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard retained power by a tiny, one-seat majority Tuesday after winning the backing of two key independent MPs in the first hung parliament in decades.

AP - Turns out politics, for all its focus on the gloomy economy, is a recession-proof industry.

AP - Hipsters, hustlers, celebrities, thieves, dope peddlers and just about everyone else in gritty, quirky Venice Beach know Boston Dawna. You can't miss the one-woman crime fighter.

Reuters - China wants to quell tensions with the United States through quiet talk, not shouting matches, a top diplomat told White House advisers on Tuesday, aiming to pave the way for a visit by President Hu Jintao early next year.

AP - A determined Republican stall campaign in the Senate has sidetracked so many of the men and women nominated by President Barack Obama for judgeships that he has put fewer people on the bench than any president since Richard Nixon at a similar point in his first term 40 years ago.