AP - Just days after Mideast peace talks began in Washington, the first major crisis is already looming: Israel hinted Sunday it will ease restrictions on building in West Bank settlements, while the Palestinian president warned he'll quit the talks if Israel resumes construction.

AFP - Australia's world basketball championships campaign came to a bone-shuddering end on Sunday when they were crushed 87-58 by Slovenia in the last 16.

AP - The armed Basque separatist group ETA, under pressure from political allies to renounce violence and decapitated repeatedly by the arrests of its leaders, announced another cease-fire Sunday, suggesting it might turn to a political process in its quest for an independent homeland.

AP - Investigators looking into what went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are a step closer to answers now that a key piece of evidence is secure aboard a ship.

AP - Duong Nghe Ly can't wait to begin his senior year at South Philadelphia High School. A day of violence there last year changed his life, and he wants to learn if his school has been transformed as well.

AFP - Pakistan's latest match in their controversial tour of Britain ended in a five-wicket Twenty20 defeat by world champions England at Sophia Gardens here on Sunday.

AP - Government agencies are seeking broad new authority to ramp up killings and removals of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes, despite two recent court actions that restored the animal's endangered status in every state except Alaska and Minnesota.

AP - The Vatican raised the possibility Sunday of using behind-the-scenes diplomacy to try to save the life of an Iranian widow sentenced to be stoned for adultery.

AP - Torrential rains from a tropical depression caused mudslides that have killed at least 38 people in Guatemala — most of them in separate disasters along the same highway.

AP - The Taliban vowed Sunday to attack polling places in Sept. 18 parliamentary elections, warning Afghans not to participate in what it called a sham vote.

AP - While a fire warms their campsite, the icy feeling between Cristina Nunez Macias and her mother-in-law is as palpable as the cold Atacama desert.

AP - It is a place of sacrifice. A place of mourning. A place people pass by on their way to grab lunch. It's a place where tourists crane their necks to snatch a glimpse around barriers walling off an enormous construction site — which is also what it is.

AP - Motivated by the deaths of two friends in war-zone explosions, 1st Lt. Timothy Dwyer decided to become a bomb hunter.

AFP - A prominent opposition journalist is to go on trial for allegedly libelling Egypt's foreign minister in a newspaper, a judicial source said on Sunday.

Reuters - President Barack Obama will ask the U.S. Congress on Wednesday to increase and permanently extend a tax credit for business research as a way of boosting job growth, an administration official said on Sunday.

AFP - US lawmakers returning from summer recess face a conundrum on tax cuts set to expire at the end of this year, with the economy seemingly sputtering ahead of looming congressional elections.

AP - Sometimes there's no going back.

AP - Craigslist appears to have surrendered in a legal fight over erotic ads posted on its website, shutting down its adult services section Saturday and replacing it with a black bar that simply says "censored."

AP - The powerful earthquake that smashed buildings, cracked roads and twisted rail lines around the New Zealand city of Christchurch also ripped a new fault line in the Earth's surface, a geologist said Sunday.

AP - For more than half a century, Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Paul Conrad poked fun at politicians, taking on presidents from Harry S. Truman to George W. Bush.

AP - American Muslims are boosting security at mosques, seeking help from leaders of other faiths and airing ads underscoring their loyalty to the United States — all ahead of a 9/11 anniversary they fear could bring more trouble for their communities.

AP - In the end, Earl's worst damage in New England was to seasonal businesses hoping to end their summer on a high note.

Reuters - The world economy is recovering moderately but still faces challenges such as the need for medium-term fiscal consolidation, the IMF's First Managing Director, John Lipsky, said on Sunday.

AP - For more than two hours on the night of May 16, 2007, Shane Maggi terrorized a Native American couple at their home on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana, pistol whipping them and firing bullets above the husband's head.

Reuters - President Barack Obama, previewing a big push on the U.S. economy next week, on Saturday defended policies that he said "have stopped the bleeding" and put the middle class on the road to recovery.

AP - Sarah Palin can take down the fence. Palin's neighbor of three months on Wasilla's Lake Lucille, author Joe McGinniss, is packing his bags and notebooks and leaving Sunday for his home in Massachusetts to write the book he has been researching on the former governor and GOP vice presidential candidate.

AP - A strong economy needs bustling Main Streets and a thriving middle class, not just a healthy stock market, President Barack Obama said in paying tribute to the American worker.

Reuters - President Barack Obama said on Friday he would outline new measures next week to boost the U.S. economy, but analysts were skeptical he would be able to deliver a big enough package to lift growth significantly.

AFP - Wall Street heads into next week with strong tailwind from recent days' rally and brighter outlook as traders keenly await President Barack Obama to unveil new plans for boosting the shaky US economy.

AP - Despite the smells of fried dough and roasted meat wafting from the Minnesota State Fair, Salim and Zuleyha Ozonder were focused on the people who were leaving, not the food or festivities beckoning from across the street.