AP - The U.S. closed its Syrian embassy and Britain recalled its ambassador to Damascus Monday in a dramatic new Western push to get President Bashar Assad to leave power as diplomatic efforts to resolve one of the deadliest conflicts of the Arab Spring collapsed.

AP - Josh Powell's note was simple and short, a farewell to the world after two years of being scrutinized in the media, hammered by police and questioned by judges, prosecutors and social workers, living his life under a microscope since the day his wife vanished.

AP - President Barack Obama levied tough new sanctions on Iran's Central Bank Monday amid increased tensions over Tehran's nuclear program and the specter of an Israeli attack on the Islamic republic.

AP - Tax reform sounds like a good idea to lots of people, but where to start? Eliminate the popular deduction for home mortgages? End the write-off for charitable contributions? How about expanding the Social Security payroll tax?

AP - Greece's coalition government on Monday caved in to demands to cut civil service jobs, announcing 15,000 positions would go this year, amid mounting international pressure to agree on austerity measures needed to secure major new debt agreements.

AP - The right-wing extremist who has admitted killing 77 people in Norway's worst peacetime massacre told a court Monday that he deserves a medal of honor for the bloodshed and demanded to be set free.

AP - After months of wavering, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas took a decisive step Monday toward reconciliation with the Islamic militant group Hamas, a move Israel promptly warned would close the door to any future peace talks.

AP - Police have started methodically searching a landfill south of Phoenix for the body of a 5-year-old Arizona girl who has been missing for more than four months and who authorities now believe is dead.