National Headlines

WASHINGTON - Women finally have a seat in the House of Representatives. Four seats, in fact. And two sinks.

LOS ANGELES — Former President George W. Bush says his apparent lack of reaction to the first news of the Sept. 11 attack was a conscious decision to project an aura of calm in a crisis.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama and automakers ushered in the largest cut in fuel consumption yesterday since the 1970s with a deal that will save drivers money at the pump and dramatically cut heat-trapping gases coming from tailpipes.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. economic recovery faltered dramatically in the first half of the year, and that means more trouble ahead.

ZINTAN, Libya - Libya's rebel government said yesterday that its top military chief, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Younis, was assassinated by its own rebel fighters, who dumped his bullet-riddled and burned body outside Benghazi.

OSLO, Norway - Norway began burying the dead yesterday, a week after an anti-Muslim extremist killed 77 people in a bombing and shooting rampage.

CAIRO - Tens of thousands of Egyptian Islamists poured into Tahrir Square yesterday, calling for a state bound by strict religious law and delivering a persuasive show of force in a turbulent country that is showing growing signs of polarization.

HAVANA - Air travel between the United States and Cuba will become easier with the opening of charter flights to the forbidden island from an additional nine U.S. cities that were announced yesterday by Cuba authorities.

AMMAN, Jordan — Syrian forces fatally shot at least 20 civilians in attacks on pro-democracy demonstrations across the country yesterday, the Syrian human rights-organization Sawasiah said.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane on

- also known as character actor James Best - sued Time Warner this week seeking back payments from the use of his image on merchandise ranging from Christmas ornaments to trash cans.

MILWAUKEE -- A man who escaped serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer's grasp two decades ago faced a possible homicide charge of his own yesterday.

LONDON -- Britain was awash in new outrage over the phone-hacking scandal yesterday as news emerged that Scotland Yard had added to the list of probable victims a woman whose 8-year-old daughter was murdered by a repeat sex offender in 2000.

SEOUL, South Korea - Thousands of soldiers and police officers searched muddy wreckage and rain-swollen streams yesterday for victims, survivors and explosives after floods and mudslides set off by torrential rain killed at least 48 people. Three others were reported missing.

ADRIAN, MICH. -- A Michigan man accused in the disappearance of his three sons pleaded no contest yesterday to three counts of unlawful imprisonment in Lenawee County, Mich., Circuit Court.

Strokes have spiked in the U.S. among pregnant women and new mothers, probably because more are obese and suffering from high blood pressure and heart disease, researchers say.

WASHINGTON - The nation's health-care tab is on track to hit $4.6 trillion in 2020, accounting for about $1 of every $5 in the economy, government number-crunchers estimate in a report released yesterday.

In apparently his first video message since succeeding Osama bin Laden as the leader of al-Qaida, Ayman al-Zawahri supported anti-government protesters in Syria, claiming their movement to topple the country's leader was rooted in a wider regional conflict with the United States and Israel.

KABUL, Afghanistan - Seven suicide attackers killed at least 21 people in near-simultaneous assaults yesterday in a provincial capital in southern Afghanistan.

BAGHDAD - Two explosions struck yesterday outside a bank in Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown, just as soldiers were lining up to cash their paychecks.

KILLEEN, Texas - An AWOL soldier who had weapons stashed in a motel room near Fort Hood has admitted planning an attack on the Texas Army post, where 13 people died in 2009 in the worst mass shooting ever on a U.S. military installation, the Army said in an alert issued yesterday.