AP - The same food safety net that couldn't catch poisoned pet food ingredients from China has a much bigger hole.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Chicago Tribune Co., a unit of Tribune Co., is aiming to cut 100 jobs and is expected to offer an employee buyout on Monday, according to the Chicago Tribune.

AP - Californians have created plenty of surf spots by accident with harbor jetties, power plant outflows and even drainage pipes. Creating one on purpose is proving more difficult.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York, Illinois and Missouri on Monday will announce multi-state agreements with unnamed parties arising from their broadening investigations into questionable student lending practices, New York said Monday.

AP - The same food safety net that couldn't catch poisoned pet food ingredients from China has a much bigger hole.

AP - Women make only 80 percent of the salaries their male peers do one year after college; after 10 years in the work force, the gap between their pay widens further, according to a study released Monday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Washington Post Co. Chairman Donald Graham defended closely held rival New York Times Co. on Monday, saying shareholder efforts to change its control structure could be a blow to journalism.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The U.S. Coast Guard said on Monday it had captured a vessel with an estimated 21 tons of cocaine in one of the largest drug seizures ever.

WINDHOEK (Reuters) - A U.S. millionaire, wanted on multiple counts in the United States in connection with a stock manipulation scandal, has set up a scholarship fund in Namibia just days before the start of his extradition case.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New York gallery is offering a new look at the Impressionist master Claude Monet, exhibiting works never before seen by the general public in the most comprehensive retrospective in New York for 30 years.

AP - A jury has found a convicted sex offender accused of raping two teen girls in an underground bunker not guilty of kidnapping, sex crimes and assault with intent to kill.

AP - A pillar of fire more than 100 feet high erupted early Monday at an electric power plant after a safety valve opened on a natural gas line and a spark ignited it, authorities said. No one was injured.

ALAMEDA, California (Reuters) - The U.S. Coast Guard said on Monday it had seized 20 tons of cocaine with a street value of $600 million from a Panamanian cargo ship in one of the largest drug busts ever.

AP - Aides to critically injured Gov. Jon S. Corzine said Monday they hope he will be able to run the government from his hospital bed when his condition improves.

AP - A man who spent 25 years in prison for rape was exonerated Monday as a judge threw out his convictions because DNA evidence showed he couldn't have committed the attack.

AP - Demand for the vaccine against cervical cancer is outstripping supply as New Hampshire offers the shots for free, leading some providers to create waiting lists.

AP - Firefighters used bulldozers Monday to widen fire breaks that were protecting a small community from a wildfire that had blackened more than 86 square miles of forest in southeast Georgia.

AP - The Wiccan pentacle has been added to the list of emblems allowed in national cemeteries and on goverment-issued headstones of fallen soldiers, according to a settlement announced Monday.

ALAMEDA, California (Reuters) - The U.S. Coast Guard unloaded nearly 20 tons of cocaine with a retail street value of $600 million into a California port on Monday following what they called the largest drug bust ever at sea.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) The U.S. Medicare Hospital Insurance trust fund will exhaust its assets in 2019 instead of the 2018 date forecast last year due to bigger payroll tax collections, a report from the fund's trustees said on Monday.

PARIS (Reuters) - Tour de France winner Floyd Landis blamed the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) after a report on Monday that further analyses of his urine samples from the 2006 Tour had shown traces of synthetic testosterone.

AP - A jury convicted a nurse Monday of killing her husband and placing his body parts in three suitcases she tossed into Chesapeake Bay.

AP - Two people were killed and several others wounded in front of a luxury apartment complex on Monday and police were searching for the gunman, police said.

AP - Fifty people left unaccounted for after a tornado destroyed homes in this Texas Panhandle town have been located and appear to be safe, an official said Monday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Los Angeles Times will offer buyouts to up to 150 employees to offset declining circulation and advertising in the latest effort by parent company Tribune Co. to cut jobs ahead of its plan to go private in an $8.2 billion deal.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The best environmentally friendly buildings in the United States include a visitor center in Texas, a water treatment plant in Connecticut and a house in California, U.S. architects announced on Monday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A virus in the U.S. Great Lakes that has killed tens of thousands of fish in recent years is spreading and poses a threat to inland fish farming, a U.S. Agriculture Department official said on Monday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A man convicted of rape in 1982 was exonerated on Monday on the basis of DNA evidence, the 200th time in the United States that such technology has reversed a conviction, lawyers who worked for the man said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Agriculture Department on Monday downgraded to 38,700 the number of people whose Social Security numbers and other private information were accidentally exposed to the public in a federal database.

AP - A bloody, bullet-filled weekend left 11 people dead across the city, where drugs and disrespect have trumped brotherly love and the murder rate is on pace to be the highest in a decade.

AP - Aides to injured Gov. Jon S. Corzine said Monday they hope he will be able to run the government from his hospital bed as he recovers.

AP - A jury acquitted a convicted sex offender Monday of raping two teenage girls who police say escaped after they were left to die in an underground bunker he had built.

AP - Firefighters used bulldozers Monday to widen breaks that were protecting a small community from a wildfire that has blackened more than 87 square miles of forest in southeast Georgia.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. administration officials on Monday issued a dire warning about the rising costs of Medicare and Social Security, saying the two popular programs for elderly are rapidly driving up government spending and are in urgent need of change.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A second company likely imported rice protein from China that was contaminated with a chemical linked to a major pet food recall, two U.S. senators said on Monday.

NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The Los Angeles Times and Chicago Tribune will cut up to 250 jobs to offset declining circulation and advertising in the latest effort by parent company Tribune Co. to curb costs ahead of its plan to go private in an $8.2 billion deal.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A former outside accountant for Hollinger International Inc.'s said on Monday she began to question the truthfulness of the media company's accounting as she became aware of payments to since-deposed company Chairman Conrad Black and other senior executives.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. task force created to curb identity theft urged federal agencies on Monday to help protect consumers by ceasing unnecessary use of Social Security numbers.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The families of three octogenarian women whose deaths were linked to last year's E. coli outbreak from tainted spinach have settled wrongful death lawsuits against companies that brought the produce to market, a lawyer for the families said on Monday.

AP - David Halberstam, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who chronicled the Washington press corps, the Vietnam War generation and baseball, was killed in a car crash early Monday, a coroner said. He was 73.

AP - Chemistry professor Joe Merola tried to give a lecture Monday, but looking out at 100 Virginia Tech students' faces — and the sweat shirt he'd placed on the seat of a wounded student — he couldn't do it.

AP - A man facing eviction from a luxury apartment complex shot and killed the manager and then himself after writing an e-mail to friends saying he had died, police said. At least two other people were injured.

AP - Aides to injured Gov. Jon S. Corzine said Monday they hope he will be able to run the state as he recovers, even if it means governing by video.

AP - He drools. His teeth stick out. His hobbies include begging and attacking noisy appliances. And now, he is a beauty contest winner. Three-year-old Riggs won the 'Beautiful Bulldog' contest Monday, beating a 50-dog field that included the likes of Sir Grizwald Snorzalot, Napoleon Underbite and Crazy Legs Da Moose.

AP - Blowing his nose and wiping away tears, the multimillionaire founder of the 'Girls Gone Wild' video empire pleaded guilty to contempt of court Monday and was sentenced to 35 days in jail.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter David Halberstam, whose work for the New York Times on the Vietnam War led many to question the U.S. military presence there, died on Monday in a car crash in Northern California.

PHOENIX (Reuters) - A U.S. Border Patrol agent was charged with murder on Monday for shooting dead a Mexican immigrant last January in a case that prompted condemnation and increased tensions with Mexico.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The families of three octogenarian women whose deaths were linked to last year's E. coli outbreak from tainted spinach have settled wrongful death lawsuits against companies that brought the produce to market, a lawyer for the families said on Monday.

AP - A Border Patrol agent was charged Monday with first-degree murder in the shooting of an unarmed illegal immigrant at the border in January.

AP - Several female police officers on Monday accused sergeants of insulting them by echoing the racially charged remarks that led to the firing of radio host Don Imus.