AP - General Mills Inc. and grocers Kroger Co. and Meijer Inc. joined the growing list of food companies and retailers pulling items with peanut butter amid a salmonella outbreak that has killed at least six people and sickened more than 470 others in 43 states.

AP - The city of Racine, Wis., has received a letter of resignation from its mayor, who faces charges in an Internet sex sting.

AP - Authorities monitored a rush of intelligence leads Tuesday at the largest security operation in presidential inauguration history, including a possible threat from an East Africa radical Islamic terrorist group.

AP - The firefighters were trapped in what amounted to a burning maze: a Bronx apartment illegally divided into extra rooms for sake of making a buck in this cramped city.

AP - A Michigan mail carrier accused of stashing thousands of pieces of mail in a storage unit instead of delivering them has pleaded guilty to deserting her route.

AP - Web developer George Huger says he turned $5 into $35,000 when he bought the expired Internet domain name for former President George W. Bush's presidential library and then sold it back.

AP - As she watched Barack Obama descend the steps of the U.S. Capitol to be sworn in as the 44th president of the United States, 107-year-old Ann Nixon Cooper leaned forward in her seat, grinned and let out a contented sigh.

AP - Gov. David Paterson acknowledged Tuesday that he is considering Attorney General Andrew Cuomo for appointment to the U.S. Senate seat about to be vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton.

AP - Some of those who are supposed to endure snow, rain and gloom of night to deliver the mail have resorted to hiding tons of it in garages, a self-storage unit and the dark of their basements.

AP - The president of University of Texas-Pan American, accused anonymously of plagiarism, said Tuesday she is retiring because of 'pressures' that taxed her health and distracted her from her job.

AP - An Indiana financial adviser has been indicted on federal charges that he intentionally crashed his airplane in Florida to try to fake his death.

AP - Before a jubilant crowd of more than a million, Barack Hussein Obama claimed his place in history as America's first black president, summoning a dispirited nation to unite in hope against the 'gathering clouds and raging storms' of war and economic woe.

AP - Authorities in Florida say they believe a missing hedge fund manager who owed investors a $50 million payout staged his disappearance.

AP - Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Tuesday missed his second deadline for filing formal answers to an impeachment charge, with a Senate trial over his ouster now less than a week away.

AP - A single sentence in Minnesota law allows Democrat Al Franken to at least temporarily join the U.S. Senate while Republican Norm Coleman's election lawsuit is pending, Franken's lawyers said Tuesday.

AP - A potential bomb threat that shut down part of the New Jersey Turnpike has been found not to be credible, New Jersey State Police said.

AP - A missing hedge fund manager who owed investors a $50 million payout told his wife in a note he felt guilty about mismanaging people's money, and threatened to kill himself, according to a sheriff's report released Tuesday.

AP - Health officials say the number of people sickened in a national salmonella outbreak involving peanut butter has grown to 485 cases.

AP - Following the world's most awaited oration — President Obama's inaugural speech — poet Elizabeth Alexander echoed the new leader's tribute to daily labor, his call for responsibility and his reminder of the sacrifices that made his election possible.

AP - The mayor of Portland apologized Tuesday for lying about a sexual relationship with a male teenager he was mentoring three years ago, but asked the city to consider it an anomaly in two decades of public service.