Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi made his first public appearance in a week Monday, vowing to continue his campaign against a government that he said lacks legitimacy. But his comments suggested he is abandoning massive street protests after they were quashed by a tough crackdown.

The U.S. services economy - from retailers and restaurants to real estate brokers - contracted less than expected in June in its best showing since before the financial crisis struck last fall, according to a private trade group's gauge.

The stage was set Monday for Michael Jackson's final act as the world capital of make-believe braced for what could be the biggest, most spectacular celebrity send-off of all time.

The first black president of the American Library Association has died in eastern North Carolina.

President Barack Obama said he and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev are countering "a sense of drift" between their nations with preliminary agreement Monday to reduce the world's two largest nuclear stockpiles to as few as 1,500 warheads each.

The Taliban confirmed on its Web site that it is holding an American soldier that the U.S. military had earlier described as possibly being in enemy hands.

The United Nations may need more than $1 billion this year to help poor countries fight the global swine flu epidemic, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday.

Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev confidently committed to a year-end deal to slash nuclear stockpiles by about a third on Monday, but the U.S. leader failed to crack stubborn Kremlin objections to America's missile defense plans - a major stumbling block to such an agreement.

Robert S. McNamara, the brainy Pentagon chief who directed the escalation of the Vietnam War despite private doubts the war was winnable or worth fighting, died Monday at 93. McNamara revealed his misgivings three decades after the American defeat that some called "McNamara's war."

The FBI is taking the unusual step of declaring that Gov. Sarah Palin is not under investigation, as Palin herself left for Western Alaska and communicated to the world through her Twitter account.

Riots and street battles killed at least 140 people in China's western Xinjiang province and injured 828 others in the deadliest ethnic unrest to hit the region in decades. Officials said Monday the death toll was expected to rise.

A funeral will be held this week for a North Carolina National Guard soldier who was one of four killed last week by an improvised explosive in Iraq.

The ousted Honduran president, Manuel Zelaya, swept over Honduras Sunday evening as crowds of his supporters clashed with soldiers and riot police at the airport.

Vice President Joe Biden signaled that the Obama administration would not stand in the way if Israel chose to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, even as the top U.S. military officer said any attack on Iran would be destabilizing.

Analysis:A week before Senate hearings, Republicans are floundering in their efforts to trip up Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, unable to find an effective message about why she's not fit to serve.

Four divisive issues could dash President Barack Obama's hopes of overhauling health care: cost, creating a government-run plan, taxing workers' benefits and penalizing employers that don't offer coverage.

Holiday snapshots and family details about the newly appointed head of Britain's MI6 intelligence agency have been removed from a Facebook page after a newspaper told the government about them.

One of the impoverished child stars from "Slumdog Millionaire" will move from his shanty home in one of Mumbai's more wretched slums into a new apartment this week, his mother said Sunday.

Police say former Washington Mayor Marion Barry has been arrested and charged with stalking a woman.

Fans began to celebrate Sunday after winning coveted tickets to Michael Jackson's memorial service at Los Angeles' Staples Center.

Underwater search teams have detected the acoustic beacons from the two flight recorders of a Yemeni jet that crashed last week in the Indian Ocean, France's crash investigation agency said Sunday.

Zimbabwe has pledged to remove its troops from diamond fields in the east, an official newspaper said Sunday, a week after a rights group alleged the military was committing killings and abuses in the area.

Two monorail trains crashed early Sunday morning in the Magic Kingdom section of Walt Disney World, killing one train's operator, emergency officials said.

At least 1,000 rioters clashed with police Sunday in a regional capital in western China after days of rising tensions between Muslim Uighurs and Han Chinese, according to witnesses and photographs of the riot.

President Barack Obama will be racking up lots of frequent flier miles on Air Force One this week.