McClatchy Newspapers - WASHINGTON — Struggling to ride out the recession, West Coast ports face new competition as ports in Canada and Mexico, an expanded Panama Canal and even the Suez Canal could steal away some of the cross-Pacific shipping they've relied on.

AP - A lawyer says Italian authorities are set to expel to Syria one of the Palestinians who hijacked the Achille Lauro cruise ship and killed an American passenger in 1985.

AP - A top White House adviser says President Barack Obama has written Michael Jackson's family.

AP - The top U.S. commander in Iraq says he believes Iraqi forces are ready to take over when American combat troops pull out of Baghdad and other cities by Tuesday.

AP - A top presidential adviser says it probably will be the fall before the Senate deals with a major climate change bill that just passed the House.

AP - A senior White House adviser says Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (ah-muh-DEE'-neh-zhahd) isn't running Iran's foreign policy.

AP - South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham says his governor, Mark Sanford, still has the chance to do good work for their state.

AP - A Duke University official has been arrested and charged with offering a 5-year-old boy for sex.

AP - NATO and Russia agreed to resume military ties Saturday in their first high-level meeting since Russia's war with Georgia disrupted their relations 10 months ago.

AP - Presidential adviser David Axelrod on Sunday said the White House hasn't issued ultimatums over its proposed health care overhaul because that approach kills grand ideas.

AP - The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations says the U.S. is keeping close tabs on a suspected North Korea arms ship.

Politico - White House senior adviser David Axelrod says President Barack Obama would like to have a public option – or government-run insurance plan – as part of a health reform package, but will not insist on it.

AP - A senior White House adviser said Sunday the economic stimulus has not yet 'broken the back of the recession' but set aside calls for a second massive spending bill. Republicans, meanwhile, called spending under way a failure.

AP - New details emerged Sunday about Israeli plans to expand Jewish settler enclaves, as Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak prepared to head to Washington to ease friction with the Obama administration over settlement construction.

AP - A potential White House contender in 2012 staked a claim Sunday to rehabilitating the Republican Party in the wake of extramarital affairs by two leading Republicans that have damaged the GOP's family-values image.

AP - The White House left open the possibility Sunday that President Barack Obama might pay for his health care overhaul by taxing employer-provided health insurance even though he had campaigned on not raising taxes on middle-class families.

AP - Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says the Senate Judiciary Committee needs more time to review records in connection with Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination.

AFP/File - Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, a close ally of former US president George W. Bush, will hold his highly-anticipated first White House meeting with President Barack Obama on Monday.

AP - Health officials in Scotland say a 73-year-old man infected with swine flu has died at a hospital outside Glasgow.

AP - Swiss police say they have uncovered a child pornography ring involving more than 2,000 people in 78 countries.

AFP - US President Barack Obama expressed his opposition to a provision in the clean energy bill that would impose trade penalties on countries that do not accept limits on global warming pollution, The New York Times reported.