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Reuters - A U.S. government team will travel to Seoul, Tokyo and Beijing next week to discuss North Korea but has no plans to visit the poor, isolated state or meet its officials, the State Department said Tuesday.

Reuters - An explosion ripped through a major Mexican refinery on Tuesday, killing one worker and pushing gasoline and diesel prices higher on worries state oil monopoly Pemex will have to import more fuel.

Reuters - The United States does not plan to contribute to a NATO request for 2,000 troops for the Afghan war, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, even as the head of the alliance held out the possibility of U.S. participation.

AP - Tropical Storm Hermine gave a wet and windy punch to Texas on Tuesday but left only minor scrapes in the storm-weary Rio Grande Valley, which is proving resilient this hurricane season after taking a third tropical system on the chin.

AP - Mikhail Youzhny briefly slowed Spain's march through the U.S. Open bracket.

AP - Barbara Walters is feeling wonderful after heart surgery in May — and has practically no scar, she added proudly Tuesday as she returned to active duty on "The View" after taking the summer off for recovery.

Reuters - A suicide bomber rammed his car into a police residential complex in Pakistan on Tuesday, killing at least 20 people, officials said, in another blow for a country grappling with devastating floods.

Reuters - French trade unions said 2.5 million people took to the streets Tuesday to protest over pension reforms that President Nicolas Sarkozy says he is determined to implement on the way to elections in 2012.

Reuters - Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard secured a wafer thin parliamentary majority on Tuesday, ending a political impasse but hardly cheering investors worried about the fragility of her government and its plans to tax mining profits.

AP - A car bomb ripped through a police compound in a northwestern Pakistani city on Tuesday, killing 14 women and children and three officers, the latest in a string of attacks proving that Islamist militants remain a potent force in the country.

Reuters - Iran has raised its gasoline output to attain self-sufficiency in the strategic product and foil sanctions targeting its energy needs, the state television's website reported its oil minister as saying.

AFP - Pakistan's devastating floods have left 10 million people without shelter, the United Nations said Tuesday, as authorities rushed to bolster river defences to save two towns from catastrophe.

AP - The flight attendant accused of onboard antics that captured the nation's attention when he told off a passenger and slid down the plane's emergency chute with a beer will undergo a mental health evaluation with the aim of avoiding jail time in a possible plea deal.

Reuters - Afghan and NATO forces are planning an offensive to clear Taliban insurgents from areas around the city of Kandahar by late November, the NATO commander for southern Afghanistan said on Tuesday.

Reuters - Cuba will soon turn some small-scale manufacturing and retail services into cooperatives as the state retreats from minor businesses in an effort to boost the island's troubled economy, government and Communist Party sources said.

AFP - More than 10 million people have been left without shelter in Pakistan's floods for the past six weeks, the United Nations said Tuesday, in "one of the worst humanitarian disasters" in UN history.