Dennis Hastert urged ethics investigators to work quickly to unravel the congressional pages scandal Tuesday, testifying before them just after a GOP lawmaker whose recollections differ from his. The Republican House speaker and some other Republicans have suggested revelations about the messages were timed to hurt the GOP in next month's elections.
Ohio executed a religious cult leader Tuesday for murdering a family of five followers who were taken one at a time to a barn, bound and shot to death. The youngest was a girl just 7 years old. Jeffrey Lundgren, 56, died by injection at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility.
Hungarian police used snow plows to brake through makeshift barricades set up by rioters and disperse the last of thousands of demonstrators who clashed with officers in Budapest until about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday during commemorations on the anniversary of the 1956 uprising against Soviet rule.
Two Egyptians who enslaved a 10-year-old girl from their home country for two years while forcing her to work under harsh conditions for no pay were sentenced Tuesday. A U.S. district judge ordered the pair to pay restitution of $76,173 to the girl, who is now 16 years old, for the work she performed.
College price increases slowed this year but they again topped inflation, and financial aid isn't keeping pace, a new report says. Tuition and fees at public four-year public colleges rose $344, or 6.3 percent, to an average of $5,836 for the 2006-07 academic year, according to a College Board report released Tuesday.
A kidnapped Associated Press photographer was released Tuesday after a harrowing day in the hands of Palestinian gunmen who abducted him at gunpoint in Gaza -- the latest in a string of kidnappings of foreigners in the chaotic area. It was not immediately clear who kidnapped him, though officials said he was taken by criminals.
The Federal Reserve will likely not change interest rates Wednesday, giving America's borrowers another break heading into the congressional elections. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his central bank colleagues opened a two-day meeting Tuesday against the backdrop of slowing economic growth and receding energy prices.
The U.S. military carried out house-to-house searches in an upscale Baghdad neighborhood for an Army translator missing after reportedly being kidnapped, but said Tuesday they had found no sign of him.
The U.S. eased limits on same-sex classrooms Tuesday, giving local school leaders the discretion to create same-sex classes for subjects such as math, a grade level or even an entire school. The move is considered the biggest change to coed classrooms in more than three decades.
A U.S. ambassador cited economic progress in Iraq as a sign that things aren't all that bad in the country. Zalmay Khalilzad insisted Tuesday that the growing number of satellite dishes on rooftops and consumers with cell phones paint a more optimistic picture of Iraq.
Paul McCartney's wife is suing two newspapers over "false, damaging and immensely upsetting" stories surrounding her divorce from the former Beatle, Heather Mills McCartney's lawyers said Tuesday.
Rush Limbaugh accused Michael J. Fox of being "either off his medication or acting" during a 30-second TV ad. The actor has Parkinson's disease and was rallying support for Democratic candidates who support stem cell research.
