AP - Taking a pass on reining in government growth, President Barack Obama unveiled a record $3.8 trillion election-year budget plan Monday, calling for stimulus-style spending on roads and schools and tax hikes on the wealthy to help pay the costs. The ideas landed with a thud on Capitol Hill.

AP - Whitney Houston was underwater and apparently unconscious when she was pulled from a Beverly Hills hotel bathtub, and she had prescription drugs in her room, authorities said Monday.

AP - In an abrupt about-face, House GOP leaders announced Monday that they are willing to extend the two percentage point cut in the payroll tax through the end of the year and add the approximately $100 billion cost to the nation's $15 trillion-plus debt.

AP - Israel blamed Iran on Monday for bomb attacks on its diplomats' cars in India and Georgia, heightening concerns that the Jewish state was moving closer to striking its archenemy.

AP - Syrian rebels repelled a push Monday by government tanks into a central town held by forces fighting President Bashar Assad's regime in an 11-month conflict that looks increasingly like a civil war.

AP - Mitt Romney and his under-funded opponents are taking advantage of a weeklong lull in the Republican presidential nomination fight — no debate or primary is slated — to raise the money needed to carry out Super Tuesday strategies and compete in states beyond.