AFP - Fighting between rebels and pro-government forces in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo opened up on a new front Sunday, as Kinshasa warned it may deploy Angolan troops raising fears of igniting the Great Lakes region.

AP - The first meeting of incoming and outgoing presidents has been a rite of passage fraught with emotion, surprises and the rare exchange of secrets between leaders of opposite political parties.

AP - Laying a wreath of bright red poppies on a chilly fall morning, Queen Elizabeth II led Britain's annual ceremony for the country's war dead Sunday, including troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

AP - Latinos are hailed as a key voting bloc, even though they show their power at the polls only sporadically. When they turned out in record numbers to vote for Democrat Barack Obama, they not only erased recent gains by Republicans but shattered the myth of a black-Latino divide.

Politico - A few days before the election, a Democratic strategist privately worried that a Vice-President Joe Biden was destined for a White House career of dissatisfaction and idle-hands mischief.

AP - Had voters re-elected Rep. Nick Lampson to Congress, he would have taken the helm of a House subcommittee that oversees NASA projects and guides its budget.

AP - Moscow will go ahead with its plan to station missiles near Poland only if the United States deploys missile defenses in Europe, a senior Russian diplomat said Sunday.

AP - This is the transition you don't hear so much about: Michelle Obama is getting ready for a new life as first lady, giving plenty of thought to what kind of profile she will carve out for herself in the White House.

AP - Poland's Foreign Ministry has condemned a conservative lawmaker who called U.S. president-elect Barack Obama the 'black messiah of the new left' and said his victory marks the 'end of the civilization of the white man.'

AP - An explosion killed two Georgian police officers early Monday near the disputed region of South Ossetia, a police official said. EU monitors called the attack an unacceptable breach of the cease-fire that ended the Georgia-Russia war.

Politico - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said Sunday that she and running mate John McCain lost because the Republican ticket “represented too much of the status quo.”

AP - The margin in Minnesota's unresolved Senate race between Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken has gotten tighter.

AP - The Supreme Court has turned aside a legal newspaper publisher's challenge to court decisions sealing an entire case from public view.

AP - Looking for one of the 240,000 tickets to President-elect Obama's inauguration on Jan. 20, 2009? Want your marching band to play in the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue? Seeking a ticket to one of the many glitzy inaugural balls?

AP - President-elect Obama's advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials, a plan that would make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but could require creation of a controversial new system of justice.

Politico - With 71 days left in office, President Bush is less popular than President Nixon was at the time of his resignation, according to data released Monday by CNN and Opinion Research Corporation.

AP - The architect of the 20-seat gain by House Democrats last week is staying on as their campaign chief for the 2010 midterm elections.

AP - African migrants armed with sticks and rocks stormed the border of a Spanish enclave in North Africa Monday but police using tear gas repelled them, the Spanish Interior Ministry said.

AP - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin spent part of the weekend going through her clothing to determine what belongs to the Republican Party after it spent $150,000-plus on a wardrobe for the vice presidential nominee, according to Palin's father.

Politico - ... looks to be the Kansas First District seat of Rep. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), who announced that he plans to run for the Senate in 2010.  He would be running for the seat of GOP Sen. Sam Brownback, who has already said he will not be running for re-election in two years.

AP - The labor unions that helped Barack Obama win the White House are looking for some payback.

AFP - Security forces searched Monday for war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic at a factory in Serbia, whose new government must capture the ex-Bosnian Serb general in order to speed up its EU accession.

AP - Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean plans to step down from his post when his term expires in January, wrapping up a tenure in which the party heavily invested in all 50 states for a payoff that helped elect Barack Obama president.

Politico - Both the White House and Obama-Biden transition team released statements on Monday’s meeting between President-elect Barack Obama and Michelle Obama and President Bush and first lady Laura Bush.

AP - The senator overseeing Barack Obama's swearing-in ceremony said Monday she's writing to Internet sites like eBay asking them not to sell scalped inauguration tickets.

AP - The Supreme Court appeared inclined Monday to rule that crime lab reports used in drug and other cases may not be introduced at trial without allowing defendants to cross-examine the forensic analysts who prepare them.

AP - China refused Monday to answer questions from a U.N. human rights panel about the alleged torture and disappearance of dissidents, or provide official figures on the mistreatment of detainees in its prisons.

AP - All smiles and compliments, President-elect Obama and his wife, Michelle, called on President Bush and first lady Laura Bush Monday in a White House visit that was part political ritual, part practical introduction and a striking symbol of the historic transfer of power to come.

Politico - Nearly a week since Election Day, the fate of six House and Senate races remained unclear Monday as heated recounts and a runoff were underway in contested races across the country.

AP - The first meeting of incoming and outgoing presidents has been a rite of passage fraught with emotion, surprises and the rare exchange of secrets between leaders of opposite political parties.

AP - German police forcibly removed anti-nuclear protesters who had staged a sit-in outside a nuclear waste storage facility where 11 containers of reprocessed nuclear waste are to be stored.

Politico - Sarah Palin, in her first sit-down interview since the election, tells Fox's Greta Van Susteren tonight she's very much open to a presidential run, and hints that she may have gotten ahead of herself this year:

AP - Democratic officials say President-elect Obama's transition aides have approached Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's former campaign manager about taking a senior White House post.