WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate moderates on Sunday threatened to scuttle the health care bill if their demands weren't met, frustrating rank-and-file Democrats who say their colleagues' views were out of step with American voters. The inter-party dispute foretells of a rowdy floor debate next month as Democratic leaders try to push through legislation that would extend health care coverage to roughly 31 million people who lack it. This weekend, the Senate voted 60-39 to open debate on the bill.
EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) - The Roman Catholic bishop of Rhode Island said Sunday that he asked Rep. Patrick Kennedy in a 2007 letter to stop receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, because of the congressman's public stance on moral issues. Bishop Thomas Tobin divulged details of his confidential exchange with Kennedy after the Democratic lawmaker told The Providence Journal in a story published Sunday that Tobin had instructed him not to receive Communion. The two men have clashed repeatedly in the past few weeks over abortion.
NEW YORK (AP) - The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday. Scott Fenstermaker, the lawyer for accused terrorist Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, said the men would not deny their role in the 2001 attacks but "would explain what happened and why they did it."
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli aircraft attacked two suspected weapons-making factories and a smuggling tunnel in the Gaza Strip early Sunday in what the military said was retaliation for Palestinian rocket fire into southern Israel. The airstrikes, which wounded at least seven people - including one seriously - came despite an announcement by Gaza's Hamas rulers that the territory's military factions had all agreed to stop firing rockets. The Hamas announcement came late Saturday, after the rocket attack.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Edward M. Kennedy will be a tough act to follow, even for the Kennedys. His death, coupled with the decision by family members not to seek the seat he held for nearly five decades, has prompted predictions that the family's long-running political dynasty is over. There's talk the Kennedy political bloodlines are running thin. Some say the younger brood lacks the grit and zest for political combat that drove the liberal Democrat to become one of the leading politicians of the last 40 years.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Thousands of marine species eke out an existence in the ocean's pitch-black depths by feeding on the snowlike decaying matter that cascades down, and even sunken whale bones, according to a report released Sunday. Oil and methane also are an energy source for the bottom-dwellers, the report says.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The number of Americans traveling away from home for Thanksgiving will be up only slightly this year from 2008, according to a report from the AAA auto club. The group, which surveyed 1,350 households, said there will be about 33.2 million people traveling by car this year - a 2.1 percent increase from last year.
Canadian woman loses benefits over Facebook photo BROMONT, Quebec (AP) - A Canadian woman on long-term sick leave for depression says she lost her benefits because her insurance agent found photos of her on Facebook in which she appeared to be having fun. Nathalie Blanchard has been on leave from her job at IBM in Bromont, Quebec, for the last year.
`New Moon' wolfs down $140.7M in opening weekend LOS ANGELES (AP) - The vampire romance "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" sucked up $140.7 million in its first three days and pulled in a total of $258.8 million worldwide, according to studio estimates Sunday. The No. 1 domestic debut for Summit Entertainment's "New Moon" was more than twice the $69.6 million haul over the same weekend last year for "Twilight," the first in the franchise based on Stephenie Meyer's novels.
NEW YORK (AP) - Mississippi, California and North Carolina, teams that started the season with lofty expectations before stumbling, have surged back into the AP Top 25 college football poll. There was little change, however, at the top of The Associated Press rankings Sunday after a weekend when most of the highly ranked teams had easy victories or time off.
