Top Stories - The Christian Science Monitor

Those promoting Thursday's Great American Smokeout 2009 have their work cut out for them. That's because cigarette use among Americans, after declining for decades, has remained virtually unchanged for five straight years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

1993-94: Trial in first World Trade Center bombing.

The Senate Homeland Security Committee Thursday began its probe into the Nov. 5 Fort Hood shooting with few details about what everyone really wants to know: the true motives of alleged shooter Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan.

Ever since Europeans first uncovered mastodon fossils along Big Bone Lick in Kentucky in 1739, the demise of these huge animals and other lumbering contemporaries at the end of the last ice age has been an enduring puzzle to paleontologists.

Washington - The lesson from an unsuccessful pirate attack in the Gulf of Aden this week was simple: Guns talk.

New York - With the decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the self-confessed 9/11 mastermind and his four alleged co-conspirators in New York, the city gets the dubious title of Terror Trial Capital of America.

Washington - Iran's rejection of a nuclear deal with international powers for treatment of its enriched uranium stockpile shifts the focus to the Obama administration. Washington now must lay out the "consequences" it said would result from any Iranian "no" to the negotiated agreement.

Attorney General Eric Holder told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday that "failure is not an option" in the prosecution of accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a New York City courtroom.

Chicago - Two Chicago nonprofits, together with the University of Chicago, unveiled a counseling and sports program Wednesday aimed at stemming chronic youth violence in Chicago's public schools.

Boston - Even as the Copenhagen climate change negotiations have moved into the slow lane, greenhouse gas emissions are accelerating, according to new evidence released today.

Washington - The US Army is short as many as 300 substance-abuse counselors and 800 mental health professionals as it attempts to stem the rise of soldier suicides, which is expected to break new records again this year.

Washington - An unusually harsh White House statement on an Israeli settlement construction project suggests both a widening rift between the White House and the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a deep freeze of the Obama administration's Mideast peace initiative.

Washington - The crash-landing of President Obama's high-profile push for Israeli-Palestinian peace talks has resulted in one idea almost no one seems to like: that the Palestinians simply declare their long-envisioned and much-discussed state of Palestine.

Atlanta - As the Army prepares an exhaustive probe into whether any red flags were missed in the lead-up to the Fort Hood rampage, a clearer portrait is emerging of Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the alleged shooter facing 13 charges of murder and a possible death sentence.

Kampala, Uganda - Some 4,000 miles away from the spiral of violence in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the simultaneous arrests of two key Rwandan Hutu rebel leaders in Germany could help bring the troubled region a step closer to peace.

A group of native Americans have lost their bid to force the Washington Redskins pro football team to change its name because they consider it to be a racial slur.

Washington - Iran's newly revealed uranium enrichment plant near Qom is at an advanced stage of construction, according to a report from the first group of UN inspectors allowed inside.

Washington - When Texas Gov. Rick Perry declared this "International Education Week," he waxed eloquent about the "era of global exchange" – American students heading abroad in increasing numbers, while foreign students flood Texas universities, returning home "with a greater understanding of the values we hold dear."

By midnight, former Patriot turned broadcaster Rodney Harrison – a man so ferocious he was once voted the NFL's dirtiest player – was marshalling all his strength to keep from weeping like a child on the air. Boston talk radio hosts were yelling at one another as though on the verge of blows. And across New England, disbelief rose like a mushroom cloud.

The space shuttle Atlantis – carrying a crew of six and some 14 tons of supplies for the International Space Station – is scheduled for launch Monday afternoon at 2:28 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.

Beijing - As President Obama surveys the range of global problems that his administration is called on to grapple with, he is searching for someone to give him a hand.

Jerusalem - Palestinian Authority leaders say that they are launching a new diplomatic campaign to gain international backing for a Palestinian state, after which they will unilaterally declare statehood in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem – without waiting for a peace treaty with Israel.

MazariSharif, Afghanistan - The insurgents' tactics are familiar. Night letters warn village elders to cooperate or face death. Religious "taxes" must be paid, and fiery sermons in mosques attack the Karzai government and international forces.

Washington - On the eve of a world food summit that will acknowledge 100 million additional hungry mouths in the world since last year, a new study chronicles 20 good ideas that have helped feed millions of people.

Boston - Sunday night, the New England Patriots mark Peyton Manning's date with reality.

Marine researchers have found a pair of Imperial Japanese Navy submarines on the sea floor off Hawaii's Oahu Island – vessels so advanced for their day they would provide plenty of fodder for a fresh novel by Tom Clancy.

Washington - Two classified cables sent to the White House by US Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry last week are bringing a new wrinkle to the already protracted debate over how the US should proceed in Afghanistan.

The US government moved Thursday to seize four mosques and a skyscraper owned by the Alavi Foundation, an Islamic nonprofit organization in New York that federal prosecutors say is a front for the Iranian government.