AFP - The operators of a hijacked Saudi super-tanker carrying 100 million dollars of oil were waiting Wednesday for further contact from the Somali bandits who staged their biggest act of piracy yet.

AFP - A Texas grand jury has issued indictments against Vice President Dick Cheney and former attorney general Alberto Gonzalez over abuse at privately run prisons, court documents showed.

AP - Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens dropped further behind Democrat Mark Begich in his re-election bid Tuesday as the convicted felon's 85th birthday became a grueling wait that could determine whether his decades-long hold on power is over.

AP - An 8-year-old boy accused in the shooting deaths of his father and another man said in a police interview released Tuesday that he did not fire the first shots at the men but later shot them so they wouldn't suffer.

AP - President-elect Barack Obama's top choice for attorney general is Eric Holder, a former No. 2 Justice Department official in the Clinton administration and Obama campaign aide who would become the first African American to serve as the nation's chief lawyer.

AP - Detroit's Big Three automakers pleaded with a reluctant Congress Tuesday for a $25 billion lifeline to save the once-proud titans of U.S. industry, pointedly warning of a national economic catastrophe should they collapse.

AP - Doctors have given a woman a new windpipe with tissue grown from her own stem cells, eliminating the need for anti-rejection drugs. "This technique has great promise," said Dr. Eric Genden, who did a similar transplant in 2005 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. That operation used both donor and recipient tissue. Only a handful of windpipe, or trachea, transplants have ever been done.

AP - The Santa Barbara County sheriff says a weekend wildfire that destroyed 210 homes was caused accidentally by a bonfire built by a group of young adults. Sheriff Bill Brown said Tuesday that the 10 young people thought they put out the bonfire before they left. The destructive wildfire erupted about 13 hours after the group left the tea garden where the bonfire was built.

AP - Sen. John McCain, whose presidential bid was snuffed out two weeks ago by President-elect Barack Obama, is setting up a political action committee as a first step in running for a fifth term in the Senate.

AP - A new witness has come forward in the 2005 disappearance of American teenager Natalee Holloway in Aruba, and prosecutors said Tuesday they are seeking more evidence against the only remaining suspect.

Reuters - President-elect Barack Obama moved closer to filling a key spot in his cabinet on Tuesday as his transition team plotted a careful course to shaping the next U.S. administration.

Reuters - U.S. Republican Sen. Ted Stevens, convicted last month of political corruption, turned 85 on Tuesday with his re-election bid facing a mounting hurdle.

Reuters - U.S. auto executives warned Congress on Tuesday that their industry was teetering on the brink of disaster as they pleaded for a $25 billion aid package despite political opposition to another multibillion-dollar government bailout.

Reuters - Momentum to name Timothy Geithner as the next U.S. Treasury Secretary seems to be building, both among the country's top business executives and bettors with actual skin in the game.