A senior U.S. diplomat will travel to North Korea before year's end to try to pull the Koreans back into international negotiations on nuclear disarmament, the State Department said Tuesday. Read More

A badly damaged North Korean patrol ship retreated in flames Tuesday after a skirmish with a South Korean naval vessel along their disputed western coast, South Korean officials said. Read More

International troops and Afghan police seized 250 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer _ enough to make up to a couple hundred roadside bombs, the Taliban's most lethal weapon in what has been the deadliest year of the war, NATO announced Tuesday. Read More

The Obama administration will nominate a young former executive with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to run America's top foreign assistance program, ending months of speculation and complaints about who would take the vacant post, U.S. officials said Tuesday. Read More

At least 10,000 Salvadorans are in urgent need of food aid after floods and mudslides destroyed huge swaths of crops during harvest season, the U.N. World Food Program said Tuesday. Read More

Gunmen shoot a priest and two seminary students in the back. Federal police storm a Mass to capture a suspected drug kingpin. Priests pray with the families of murdered men, then face killers in the confessional. Read More

A landslide triggered by torrential seasonal rains swept through a hilly region in southern India, killing at least 42 people, an official said Tuesday. Read More

A suicide car bomber attacked a crowded market in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing 24 people and illustrating militants' growing willingness to target civilians in their war against the government. Read More

Dutch prosecutors said Tuesday they have arrested a 43-year-old Somali man wanted by U.S. authorities for allegedly financing Islamic extremist terrorists. Read More

Japanese police said Tuesday that they arrested the main suspect in the slaying of a British teacher whose body was found taped up and half-buried in a sand-filled bathtub, ending a more than two-year manhunt. Read More

A Northern Ireland filmmaker has won euro46,000 ($69,000) in damages after a judge ruled that his Irish island home was transformed into a parking lot while he was overseas for six years. Read More

Saudi Arabia imposed a naval blockade on the Red Sea coast of northern Yemen to stem the flow of weapons and fighters to Shiite rebels along its border, a Saudi government adviser and media reports said Tuesday. Read More

A group of 11 countries vulnerable to adverse effects of global warming urged world leaders Tuesday to reach a binding agreement at the next month's global conference on the issue. Read More

Colombia says at least nine soldiers have been killed and four wounded in combat with leftist rebels in a mountainous western region. Read More

A former dive shop owner convicted of killing his wife on a Caribbean scuba outing in 1999 was sentenced Tuesday to 25 years in prison for what prosecutors called a near-perfect crime motivated by his desire to pursue another woman. Read More

Veterans saluted and mourners laid flowers on hearses as hundreds paid tribute Tuesday to six soldiers killed in Afghanistan _ including five shot to death by an Afghan police officer who turned against them. Read More

Brazil's case of the pink mini-dress that has gone viral on the Internet has left many scratching their heads _ how could it be that an outfit, no matter how short, would cause such an uproar in a tropical nation where skimpy clothing and tiny bikinis barely raise an eyebrow? Read More

French officials have denied reports suggesting that President Nicolas Sarkozy's office used its clout to try to help one of his sons win a grant for hip-hop music projects. Read More

Rising temperatures over the next few decades will unleash storms, floods and drought across China's Yangtze River Basin, a new report says, raising the prospect of catastrophe for a region that is home to nearly a third of the country's population. Read More

Political wrangling by Japan's new government over plans to move a major U.S. Marine base on Okinawa has opened a wide rift in Washington's most important Asian alliance ahead of President Barack Obama's visit later this week. Read More