House health bill unacceptable to many in Senate

WASHINGTON (AP) - Don't look for the Senate to quickly follow the House on health care overhaul. A government health insurance plan included in the House bill is unacceptable to a few Democratic moderates who hold the balance of power in the Senate. They're locked in a battle with liberals, with the fate of President Barack Obama's signature issue at stake.

Resolute Fort Hood soldiers ready for return

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) - Pvt. Joseph Foster took a bullet in the leg during the Fort Hood shooting rampage. He pauses when he's asked about the mayhem, then credits a stout heritage with bringing him through the ordeal and leaving him eager for his scheduled January deployment to Afghanistan. "I'm Irish. It hit the bone and bounced out," Foster, of Ogden, Utah, said Sunday of the bullet that tore into his left hip. His wife is uneasy about the deployment, but the 21-year-old Foster is resolute. "I'm a soldier. It's my job."

Germany celebrates fall of Berlin Wall

BERLIN (AP) - With prayers, music and pomp, Germany on Monday remembered the 20th anniversary of the day the Berlin Wall fell, sending East Germans flooding west and setting in motion events that soon led to the country's reunification. Chancellor Angela Merkel - reunited Germany's first leader to grow up in the communist east - started the day with President Horst Koehler and other leaders at a prayer service at a former East Berlin church that was a rallying point for opposition activists in 1989.

Terror training camps smaller, harder to target

WASHINGTON (AP) - Under growing pressure from U.S. missile strikes, the al-Qaida terror network is relying more heavily on local insurgent groups along the Pakistan border to house training camps that are growing smaller and more mobile, according to counterterrorism officials and analysts. The changes in the terror group's training operations - often hidden inside walled compounds deep in Pakistan's mountains - have made them increasingly difficult to target by U.S. intelligence forces as they have stepped up drone attacks over the past year.

Hurricane warnings for US Gulf Coast for Ida

NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Hurricane Ida chugged toward the Gulf Coast, and despite warnings extending more than 200 miles across several states, residents seemed to take the first Atlantic hurricane to target the U.S. this season in stride. Authorities said the hurricane weakened early Monday to a Category 1 storm, with 90 mph winds. It could make landfall as early as Tuesday morning, although it was forecast to weaken further. There were no immediate plans Sunday night for mandatory evacuations.

Rain-triggered landslides kill 14 in Indonesia

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - Torrential rains triggered a series of landslides on Indonesia's Sulawesi island, killing at least 14 residents and burying many more, a local official said Monday. The downpours sent a mass of mud slamming into about 20 houses in the outskirts of the town of Palopo, South Sulawesi province, Mayor Pateddungi Tenri Ajeng said Monday.

Philadelphia transit system running as strike ends

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Representatives of Philadelphia's transit system and its largest union signed a contract early Monday, bringing an end to a strike that idled the city's subways, buses and trolleys for six days. "The strike is over," Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell told reporters at a hastily called news conference in the lobby of a Philadelphia hotel. The governor said the transit system would be back up and running in time for Monday morning's commute.

Police say suicide bomber kills 3 in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) - A suicide bomber in a rickshaw detonated his explosives near a group of policemen in northwest Pakistan's main city of Peshawar, killing three people Monday, police said. The attack was the latest in a string of strikes that has killed more than 300 people over the past six weeks. The bloodshed appears aimed at distracting the government from its offensive against the Taliban in the South Waziristan tribal region.

Lawmaker wants probe of E. coli and school lunches

WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee wants an investigation into the risk of deadly E. coli getting into school lunches. Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., is worried about a recent outbreak that killed at least two people and sickened about two dozen others in 11 states.

UC Berkeley students roll a giant serpent of sushi

BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) - It was the roll of a lifetime. Hundreds of amateur sushi chefs at the University of California, Berkeley got their hands fishy Sunday as they assembled a 330-foot California roll.

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