USA
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice begins a week of Middle East meetings Tuesday in Cairo, where the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is expected to be a top agenda item with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and eight Arab foreign ministers. She'll also make stops in Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the West Bank. The trip is her first to the region since August, when the US was criticized for not moving to expedite an end to fighting in Lebanon between Israel and Hizbullah militants, which eventually was achieved by a UNbrokered cease-fire.
The Supreme Court on Monday rejected the appeal of former Nazi concentration camp guard John Hansel of Des Moines, Iowa, who sought to have the government's decision to revoke his US citizenship overturned. It was the first of 38 cases on the court's new docket, which includes 17 business disputes.
Spending on construction projects rose 0.3 percent in August, following a 1 percent decline in July, the Commerce Department reported Monday. The uptick was the best gain in residential building in nearly a year and offset a slump in home construction. Meanwhile, the Institute for Supply Management said growth in the manufacturing sector slowed in September.
The University of Mississippi marked the 44th anniversary of integration on its Oxford campus Sunday by dedicating a bronze likeness of James Meredith, the first black student admitted to the university.
Former Rep. Mark Foley (R) of Florida, who resigned last Friday and is under FBI investigation for inappropriate e-mail exchanges with congressional pages, checked himself into an unidentified rehab facility for alcoholism treatment Monday, his attorney acknowledged.
Americans Andrew Fire and Craig Mello were selected Monday as the Nobel Prize winners in medicine for their work in discovering "a fundamental mechanism for controlling the flow of genetic information." Fire, of Stanford University, and Mello, of the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, will share the $1.37 million award.
The major-league baseball playoffs begin Tuesday, with the New York Yankees and Mets sporting the best regular-season records. The Yankees are joined by Oakland, Minnesota, and Detroit in first-round American League action, while in the National League, San Diego, St. Louis, and the Los Angeles Dodgers complete the lineup.
