AFP - US president-elect Barack Obama has chosen former White House chief of staff Leon Panetta to head the Central Intelligence Agency, a Democratic Party official told AFP Monday.

AFP - The heaviest fighting of Israel's war on Hamas raged in Gaza's main city early on Tuesday as the Israeli government fended off appeals to stop the death toll from mounting further.

AP - A table piled with donated clothes is being eyed as the potential origin of a fire that killed five people at a Texas homeless shelter, forcing some residents to flee into the cold streets barefoot and coatless.

AP - The home of a giant land crab, a sunken island ringed by pink-colored coral, and equatorial waters teeming with sharks and other predators are being designated national marine monuments by President George W. Bush in the largest marine conservation effort in history.

AP - A federal judge has accused the Bush administration of hiding evidence in the case of a Yemen man who has been held as a terror suspect at Guantanamo Bay for six years.

AP - Like so many American creations — baseball, comic books, rock 'n' roll — the video game is a mongrel art form. Literature, music, art and film all get jumbled together in this relatively new medium, but even that isn't enough: Designers have to figure out how to make the whole package interactive as well.

AFP - Little-known Latvian Ernests Gulbis sent top seed and world number three Novak Djokovic crashing out of the first round of the Brisbane International here Tuesday.

AP - Stan Parrish was so impressed by Tulsa's offense in last year's GMAC Bowl, he decided to take a crash course in the system during the spring. Now, Parrish has been promoted to head coach at Ball State just in time to face the Golden Hurricane in the same bowl game Tuesday night.

Fashion Wire Daily - You'd think that at a movie premiere for a flick called "Bride Wars" would be all about the dresses, but in New York on Monday night, it was all about the hair.

The Christian Science Monitor - Thermometers are plunging across Europe, and so is the pressure in the natural-gas pipelines connecting the continent with its key supplier, Russia.