WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. plan for helping handle a pandemic of deadly bird flu, to be outlined by President George W. Bush later on Tuesday, is expected to center on strengthening the vaccine industry.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. Treasury official said on Monday that banks should not fear regulatory punishment for relaxing certain anti-money laundering rules to help victims of disasters, as long as they exercise 'reasonable caution.'

AP - Rosa Parks' body has returned to the city she called home, with thousands waiting in a line more than a quarter-mile long to pay their final respects to the late civil rights leader.

AP - Usually, Chris Hambrose's commute to work takes 14 minutes on the subway. It's taking substantially more these days as a transit strike brings the city's buses, subways and trolleys to a halt.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaigning ahead of election day next week has hurt rather than helped efforts to win support for his four favored ballot initiatives, a poll released on Tuesday found.

AP - Attorneys defending Republican U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay are hoping they can convince a judge that Democratic state district Judge Bob Perkins should not oversee DeLay's criminal trial.

AP - People stood in a line that spilled out into the street Tuesday as they waited to pay their final respects to the late civil rights leader Rosa Parks.

AP - Hurricane Katrina is figuring prominently in the campaign for a gas-tax revolt thousands of miles away.

AP - A 19-year-old man who killed two neighbors then himself while dressed in a cape and paintball mask had posted suicidal messages on a Web site, according to a report published Tuesday.

AP - The governor has summoned lawmakers for a two-week special session to deal with the aftermath of the Gulf Coast hurricanes, including proposals for tax relief and options for borrowing money and cutting spending to cope with a nearly $1 billion state budget deficit.

AP - A two-month ban on recreational grouper fishing in the Gulf of Mexico that was scheduled to begin Tuesday has been overturned.

AP - Some hurricane victims tearfully call Evelyn Simmons from motel rooms, out of money and hope, begging for any kind of help she can provide from the federal call center where she works.

AP - University of Georgia student Brandon Esco has faced his share of razzing for being a nutrition science major — a field traditionally dominated by women. "You're only in that major because of the girls," is the most common teasing he's heard.

AP - In a quiet voice — almost a whisper — Mukhtar Mai spoke of her fight against a system back home in Pakistan that allowed a tribal council to deem it acceptable that four men could rape her to avenge their honor after her brother allegedly had sex with a woman above his class.

AP - Attorneys defending Republican U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay are hoping they can convince a judge that Democratic state district Judge Bob Perkins should not oversee DeLay's criminal trial. On Tuesday, Visiting Judge C.W. Duncan was to hold a hearing on whether Perkins should be removed from DeLay's politically charged case because of alleged bias. DeLay was expected to attend the hearing.

AP - Three people were stabbed Tuesday in Lafayette Park, across from the White House, the Secret Service said.

AP - Donald Powell, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., has been assigned to oversee the federal government's disaster recovery efforts in the Gulf Coast, the Bush administration announced Tuesday.

AP - The migrant farmworkers who pick more than half of the nation's winter vegetable supply and three-quarters of the U.S. citrus crop are facing a season of uncertainty because of Hurricane Wilma.

AP - Commuters laced up their walking shoes, pedaled bicycles and hitched rides as a transit strike brought the city's buses, subways and trolleys to a halt for a second day Tuesday.

AP - A battle over a policy requiring that ninth-graders in this rural community learn about "intelligent design" in biology class is being fought on two fronts — one political, one legal.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush Administration on Tuesday named FDIC chairman Donald Powell to oversee federal efforts to rebuild the U.S. Gulf coast region devastated by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An assailant stabbed three people and accosted a fourth in Lafayette Park across from the White House on Tuesday and was in custody, the Secret Service said.

ATLANTIC CITY, New Jersey (Reuters) - Merck & Co. Inc. knew its painkiller Vioxx increased the risk of heart attacks and failed to inform doctors and the public in order to protect profits, an attorney for a man who blames the withdrawn drug for his 2001 heart attack told jurors on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Several U.S. Supreme Court members appeared supportive on Tuesday of allowing New Mexican followers of a small Brazilian-based religion to legally use hallucinogenic tea as a sacrament, a case that pits drug laws against those protecting religious freedoms.

AP - The engineers who designed the floodwalls that collapsed during Hurricane Katrina did not fully consider the porousness of the Louisiana soil or make other calculations that would have pointed to the need for stronger levees with deeper pilings and wider bases, researchers say.

AP - A judge in a bitter dispute between divorced parents over where to bury a son killed in Iraq sided with the soldier's father Tuesday.

AP - The former head of a Kansas space museum was found guilty Tuesday of stealing and selling spacesuit components and other artifacts that belonged to the institution and NASA.

AP - A U.S. soldier could face the death penalty after an Army probe recommended Tuesday he be court-martialed in the Iraq war's first case of alleged "fragging," slang for the murder of superior officers.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate and House of Representatives negotiators on Tuesday agreed to a $20.9 billion foreign aid bill, with less than President George W. Bush wanted for reform-minded nations, and nearly $3 billion to fight AIDS.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Britain's Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, began an eight-day U.S. trip with a visit to Manhattan's Ground Zero and the dedication of the British Memorial Garden to honor victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The cost of mailing a letter in the United States will rise two cents to 39 cents under a rate hike approved by the U.S. Postal Rate Commission on Tuesday.

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Under gray skies, New Orleans residents on Tuesday turned out to clean the city's historic cemeteries, pay tribute to the dead and remember those still struggling in the wake of a killer storm.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Residents of a Washington, D.C., low-income housing project announced a redevelopment deal worth more than $125 million on Tuesday that would guarantee each family a new home in a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood.

AP - A man once considered a top al-Qaida operative escaped from a U.S.-run detention facility in Afghanistan and cannot testify against the soldier who allegedly mistreated him, a defense lawyer involved in a prison abuse case said Tuesday.

AP - Hispanic children are much more likely than white or black students to attend the nation's largest and poorest public high schools, a new analysis shows.

AP - A woman accused of helping her husband kill their 8-year-old to rid her of a demon pleaded guilty to murder Tuesday.

AP - A flock of wild parrots that took up residence on a hill overlooking the bay, becoming the subject of a best-selling book and documentary film, were nowhere to be seen Tuesday after one of their perches was cut down and two others faced a similar fate.

AP - The bodies recovered from a nursing home and hospital after Hurricane Katrina were so decomposed they may not yield any evidence for prosecuting crimes, the coroner overseeing the autopsies says.

AP - Many fewer disabled children take the nation's reading and math tests than the government has previously said, congressional investigators acknowledge.

AP - Under unseasonably balmy November sunshine, small but enthusiastic crowds greeted Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, as the couple began their first joint trip to the United States by paying tribute Tuesday to victims of the Sept. 11 attacks.

AP - A ballot measure asking Colorado voters to give up more than $3 billion in taxpayer refunds to stave off drastic cuts in spending on college education and health care for the poor held a slim lead with two-thirds of the vote counted Tuesday.