ELECTIONS

Unlikely Republican front-runner Herman Cain faces close scrutiny on Tuesday when the party's hopefuls for president in 2012 debate in a gambling city famed for separating winners from losers.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is in Tripoli, Libya, visiting with the country's post-Moammar Gadhafi leadership.

Voters in a sparsely populated district of rural Alaska have narrowly passed a ballot initiative that could block development of the controversial Pebble Mine, local officials said late Monday.

A newly released Zogby poll puts Herman Cain ahead of all other Republican contenders with 45 percent.

President Barack Obama's fellow Democrats in the Senate proposed a bill on Monday to enact into law a portion of his popular $447 billion jobs program that Republicans blocked last week.

Herman Cain, author of the 9-9-9 plan and GOP presidential hopeful, can now add Internet sensation to his resume after the Omaha World-Herald posted his 1991 Rendition of Imagine (There's No Pizza), a leftover from his Godfather CEO days.

China is steeling itself for another presidential election in rambunctiously democratic Taiwan, hoping a victory for the ruling Nationalists enables even better ties but also girding for an opposition win that may inflame tensions.

Nigeria's new car imports jumped 40 percent in the first nine months of 2011 compared to the same period last year, although sales were expected to slow given rising interest rates and local currency weaknesses, import dealers said on Monday.

In Nigeria, a member of parliament was shot dead by militants thought to be affiliated with Islamic group Boko Haram.

Zimbabwe's local ownership rules for foreign mining companies are too stringent, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said on Monday.

The number of murders fell by 6.5 percent over the 12-month period through the end of March 2011 to 15,940, the lowest figure in seventeen years.

Before his arrest at an Occupy Wall Street-style protest outside of the U.S. Supreme Court, Cornel West said Martin Luther King Jr. would be protesting alongside the group.

Francois Hollande won France's Socialist Party nomination on Sunday, positioning him to run against Nicolas Sarkozy in next year's presidential election. Creating unity with in his own party will be an enormous task.

Hugo Chavez, the President of the South American republic of Venezuela, is reportedly returning to Cuba for more tests, after undergoing surgery to remove a tumor and four rounds of chemotherapy, a few months ago.

Some Haitians have reportedly called for the complete removal of all UN peacekeepers from the country.

MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan has started his own movement for a fairer and more democratic political process, Get Money Out, inspired by Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street frustrations, after delivering an inflamed monologue on MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan Show.

Let's just get to the punch -- since that's what good Halloween costumes are. A punch. So here are 5 smokin' hot Halloween costumes for adults:

Both bloggers and the military played important roles in the Egyptian uprising of 2011, but the two groups are not at odds. In Iran, there is a similar silencing of opposition voices. Actress Marzieh Vafamehr was sentenced to a year in prison and 90 lashes for appearing in the film My Tehran for Sale.

The New Zealand oil spill threatens to taint the nation's 100 percent Pure reputation for tourists.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi won a confidence vote in parliament by a hair on Friday, taking the exact number of votes required to win.

A Wisconsin state lawmaker Wednesday proposed a plan to scrap the winner-take-all system of allocating presidential electoral votes.