AFP - US President Barack Obama has approved the creation of an elite team of interrogators to question key terrorism suspects, The Washington Post reported Monday.

AP - President Barack Obama and his family began a weeklong vacation on this Massachusetts island with a message to the reporters who have crowded the New England villages: Chill out and don't expect much.

AP - Wall Street may have discovered a way out from under the bad debt and risky mortgages that have clogged the financial markets. The would-be solution probably sounds familiar: It's a lot like what got banks in trouble in the first place.

Bloomberg - August 24 (Bloomberg) -- China and the U.S., the biggest sources of the greenhouse gas emissions heating the planet, have stood in the way of an international climate treaty for almost as long as there have been efforts to craft one. The U.S. never ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol partly because the pact didn’t compel China and other developing economies to lower emissions.

Politico - Nothing spurs public outrage like Wall Street bonuses and huge payouts to banking execs.

Politico - TV loves a ruckus, Obama noted this month. He could have said the same about a few members of Congress.

AP - The Justice Department's ethics office has recommended that the attorney general reopen and pursue nearly a dozen CIA prisoner-abuse cases, The New York Times reported Monday.

AP - The top U.S. Marine is checking on troops in one war zone as he gets ready to send more to the next.

AFP - Indonesian police on Monday dismissed a media report saying that Islamist extremists were planning to assassinate US President Barack Obama when he visits the country.

AP - British police say officers spent about 12.5 million pounds ($20.6 million) on first class and business class flights in the last three years.

AP - Pope Benedict XVI made his first public appearance since having the cast removed from his broken right wrist, joking Sunday that his hand was 'freed,' but still a bit sluggish.

Bloomberg - Aug. 24 (Bloomberg) -- A top U.S. military official said Afghanistan’s security situation is getting worse, as Senator John McCain warned that there aren’t enough troops deployed in the country.

AP - Once the national elections are behind them, local Afghan leaders will step up efforts to reconcile with midlevel Taliban in the extremists' southern Helmand province stronghold, a key provincial official said Monday.

McClatchy Newspapers - JERUSALEM _The United Nations has never been especially beloved in Israel, where the international body is often viewed as biased and pro-Palestinian. Vandals in certain religious Jerusalem neighborhoods have been known even to deface U.N. cars by adding certain vowels around U.N. stickers to create a vulgar curse word.

AP - Italy defended its record Sunday in saving the lives of migrants found at sea amid increasing criticism over the suspected deaths of dozens of Africans.

AFP - President Barack Obama has approved the creation of a team of interrogators overseen by the White House to question terror suspects, a senior official said Monday.

AP - The Connecticut Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of one of eight people in the rape and murder of a 13-year-old New Milford girl in 1997.

McClatchy Newspapers - KABUL, Afghanistan — A young Afghan whose six-year detention at Guantanamo came to symbolize many of the problems of the Bush administration's war on terror detention policies arrived in his home country today, less than a month after a federal judge in Washington ordered his release.

CQPolitics.com - Back in June when Rep. Gene Green, D-Texas, was considering venues for his August town hall meetings, he did what he has ordinarily done and reserved space at local civic clubs. The rooms hold about 75 people, which Green figured would be more than adequate; in past years less than a third of that would attend.

AP - Add this to President Barack Obama's problems in selling his health care overhaul: A lot of the tech-savvy activists who helped put him in office are young, feeling indestructible and not all that into what they see as an old folks issue.

AP - President Barack Obama played tennis with his wife and golf with his buddies Monday, starting his first vacation in office on Martha's Vineyard, a picturesque island known as a refuge for the wealthy and privileged.

Politico - When asked if she regrets her jokes about Rush Limbaugh, the comedian says 'not at all.'

Reuters - The Obama administration pledged on Monday to stay out of General Motors Co's choice of a buyer for its Opel unit in Europe as German union leaders put more pressure on the U.S. automaker to make a decision.

McClatchy Newspapers - KABUL, Afghanistan — A young Afghan whose six-year detention at Guantanamo came to symbolize many of the problems of the Bush administration's war on terror detention policies arrived in his home country Mondaytoday, less than a month after a federal judge in Washington ordered his release.

AP - The White House is repeating its long-held view on CIA interrogators of terror suspects, saying that they should not be prosecuted if they acted within legal guidelines laid out at the time.

Politico - President Obama will limit the techniques it can employ to those already approved for military use.

Politico - The move could lead to criminal prosecution of CIA officers and reopen the debate on how far the U.S. should go.

AFP - The White House Monday said President Barack Obama had no plans to meet Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi at the United Nations next month, but declined to rule out a chance encounter.

AP - A federal judge in Southern California has dismissed on a technicality a same-sex marriage lawsuit that created a rift between President Barack Obama and his gay supporters.

AP - President Barack Obama played tennis with his wife and golf with his buddies Monday, starting his first vacation in office on Martha's Vineyard, a picturesque island known as a refuge for the wealthy and privileged.

AFP - The United States should craft a 'flexible timetable' for its withdrawal from Afghanistan even though President Barack Obama may be considering plans to ramp up US forces there, a US Senator urged Monday.

AP - On Monday, the Obama administration released newly declassified 2004 CIA documents detailing the Bush administration's policy of capturing suspected terrorists and interrogating them in overseas prisons. Some highlights:

AP - A second candidate of African descent announced he'll run for head of a rural district in southern Russia, election officials said Monday, making for an unusual slate in a country with deeply ingrained racism.

AFP - The White House and a financial scrutiny arm of Congress will release Tuesday separate government budget estimates and updated economic forecasts highlighting the deficit problem plaguing the Obama administration.

Politico - The immediate reaction to Holder’s announcement suggests the investigation will be politically divisive.

AP - Military commanders in Afghanistan are not rejecting requests from reporters who want to accompany U.S. troops in Afghanistan because their prior coverage of the military has been negative, the Pentagon said Monday.

McClatchy Newspapers - WASHINGTON — By naming a special prosecutor to investigate whether CIA officers or contractors violated the Bush administration's interrogation policies, Attorney General Eric Holder has struck a middle course that isn't likely to satisfy anyone and could complicate President Barack Obama's broader political agenda.

McClatchy Newspapers - WASHINGTON — As the government's $3 billion 'cash for clunkers' program spurred an apparent last-minute car-buying frenzy across the nation Monday, it remained unclear whether the popular rebate effort gave the ailing auto industry an important boost — or only a temporary reprieve.

AP - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, widely credited with taking aggressive action to avert an economic catastrophe after the financial meltdown last fall, will be nominated by President Barack Obama for a second term, The Associated Press learned Monday night.

Politico - The immediate reaction to Holder’s announcement suggests the investigation will be politically divisive.

AP - President Barack Obama's special envoy on North Korea is likely to visit the communist nation next month for the first nuclear negotiations between the two countries under his presidency, a news report said Tuesday.

Politico - Bernanke arrives on the Vineyard Tuesday morning to appear jointly with Obama at the announcement.