AP - Hours before addressing the nation, President Barack Obama told U.S. troops just back from Iraq that his speech outlining the withdrawal of combat forces "is not going to be a victory lap" nor a cause for celebration.

Reuters - Powerful Hurricane Earl churned toward the eastern seaboard on Tuesday and looked sideswipe the densely populated coast from North Carolina to New England, the National Hurricane Center said.

AP - Margaret Cho combines comedy with music on her new album to address some somber topics: rejection, interventions and even murder.

AFP - Dutch prosecutors on Tuesday said two Yemenis arrested at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport after US security found a cellphone taped to a bottle in their luggage were being held for possible terrorism offences.

AP - A pistol-packing 69-year-old woman in northern Alabama believes intruders will think twice before messing with her again. Police said Ethel Jones shot an 18-year-old man in the stomach when she found him inside her bedroom at her home in Decatur. Jones said she sleeps with her gun under a pillow next to her and said she grabbed it after hearing a door rattle shortly before 3 a.m. Monday.

AP - The bear that recently killed a caretaker in a Cleveland suburb was the latest example of animal violence in a state that has some of the nation's weakest restrictions on exotic pets and among the highest number of injuries and deaths caused by them.

AP - In less than a week the 33 miners trapped under Chile's Atacama Desert will have been stuck underground longer than any others in memory — taxing authorities Thursday with unique challenges on coaxing them and their families through the ordeal.

AP - Michael Enright once volunteered with a group that promotes interfaith tolerance and has supported a proposal for a mosque near ground zero — an experience distinctly at odds with what authorities say happened inside a city taxi.

AP - New requests for unemployment benefits fell sharply last week, the first decline in a month and a hopeful sign after a raft of negative economic reports.