AP - A then 26-year-old Barack Obama walked down the aisle of Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, knelt beneath a cross suspended from its rafters and, as he later explained it, committed himself to God after years as a religious skeptic.

AFP - More than a thousand Afghan cultural artefacts returned to their native soil after nearly a decade in a Swiss museum, the Swiss foreign affairs ministry said.

AP - Vice President Dick Cheney went to George Washington University Hospital Tuesday morning after experiencing discomfort in his left lower leg, where a blood clot was discovered a few weeks ago.

AP - The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that Travelers Casualty & Surety Co. of America can seek to recover attorneys' fees from Pacific Gas and Electric Co. in a federal bankruptcy case.

AP - Russia's national security adviser said Sunday that a new United Nations envoy on Kosovo should be appointed in the wake of a deadlock on the plan for the Serbian province's future, the Interfax news agency reported.

AP - Presidential hopeful Tom Tancredo has joined the growing chorus of lawmakers calling for U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign — only not for the usual reason.

AP - Vandals upset over the Iraq war defaced U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers' office overnight, a spokesman said Tuesday.

AP - Vice President Dick Cheney went to George Washington University Hospital Tuesday morning after experiencing discomfort in his left lower leg, where a blood clot was discovered a few weeks ago.

AP - The 94-2 roll call Tuesday by which the Senate voted to end the attorney general's authority to fill U.S. attorney vacancies without Senate confirmation.

AP - John Fry was convicted of shooting two people to death alongside a northern California highway even though a witness overheard another man confess to the crimes.

AP - House Democrats called for better inspections and tougher standards for bus operators Tuesday after the recent crash in Atlanta that left five college baseball players dead.

AP - Labeling global warming an international emergency, Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards called Tuesday for a cap on greenhouse gas pollution and stricter auto emissions standards.

AP - Sen. Dianne Feinstein said Tuesday she wants answers about the departure of the former U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, who resigned last October months before the Justice Department's dismissal of eight other U.S. attorneys sparked controversy.

AP - John Fry was convicted of shooting two people to death alongside a northern California highway even though a witness overheard another man confess to the crimes.

AP - Top executives of some of the country's largest electric utilities gave guarded support Tuesday — or at least said they were not opposed — to mandatory carbon emission limits to deal with global warming.

AP - Democrats are using the same tricks as President Bush in their rival plan to balance the federal budget by 2012: ignoring long-term costs of the war in Iraq and the need to fix a tax law that threatens unsuspecting middle-class families.

AP - Vice President Dick Cheney went to the hospital Tuesday after experiencing discomfort in his left lower leg, where a blood clot was recently discovered.

AP - Payments to rural counties hurt by cutbacks in federal logging would continue for five more years under a deal announced Tuesday by Senate Democrats.

AP - Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's just-published memoirs skewer his former comrades in the historic 1994 Republican revolution for squandering the victory through useless and ineffective leadership.

Reuters - Montenegrin police took the unusual step of detaining several relatives of Bosnia Serb war crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic over the weekend, questioning them about his whereabouts, local media reported on Sunday.

AP - Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco, whose popularity plummeted after two hurricanes devastated Louisiana during her term, announced Tuesday that she will not seek re-election.

AP - Up to a dozen Democrats might resist setting a deadline to end the war in Iraq, prompting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to rally prominent party members to help widen the margin for a nail-biting vote.

AP - With every unfolding crisis, President Bush is finding fewer allies in his corner. Republicans are ever more nervous about the Iraq war, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' problems, FBI abuses of the Patriot Act and the botched treatment of war wounded at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

AP - 'Bill and Al's excellent adventure' ended tensely in the Clinton impeachment crisis and the Gore election loss — the heady '92 campaign a distant memory. Now they're back in Washington, two policy wonks cutting up the rug in the capital once more.

AP - New Hampshire Democrats say they will ask Congress to investigate whether prosecution of a Republican phone-jamming scheme on Election Day 2002 was intentionally delayed until after the presidential election two years later.