WASHINGTON -- The swine flu outbreak is showing the best and worst of Twitter, the highly popular micro-blogging site, Internet experts said. Some say Twitter -- where users post 140-character messages -- is filled with misinformation and is sparking fear about the outbreak, believed to have killed nearly 150 people in Mexico, CNN reported Tuesday. Twitter's popularity has exploded in recent months and nearly 10 times more people are writing on Twitter about swine flu than wrote ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has asked that a federal court vacate a rule allowing mining companies to dump waste near rivers and streams. Salazar instructed the Justice Department to ask the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to vacate the rule adopted in the waning days of the George W. Bush administration, The Washington Post reported Tuesday. A 1983 law barring mine operators from dumping debris -- collected from shearing mountaintops to ... [full story]

WARSAW, Poland -- Construction workers in southern Poland have found a message in a bottle written 65 years ago by prisoners in the Nazi Auschwitz camp, Polish Radio said. The message, written on what appeared to be a torn-off piece of a paper cement pack, was found in the wall of a school building in the southern city of Oswiecim that is now being reconstructed, the radio said Tuesday. The building that is now used as a ... [full story]

MISSOULA, Mont. -- A U.S. judge says prosecutors in a Montana asbestos contamination trial have misbehaved and is considering throwing out charges against a chemical company. An angry U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy said Monday in Missoula, Mont., that the trial against the W.R. Grace chemical products company has been marred by many prosecutorial missteps, including repeated violations of court orders and the use of a star witness who lacked credibility, The New York Times reported. ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- Texas storefronts slammed by Hurricane Ike are among America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places, the National Trust for Historic Preservation said Tuesday. The 19th-century buildings with elaborate cast-iron storefronts in Galveston, Texas, head the list of U.S. historic sites considered to be most at risk by the organization, it said in a release, Flooding from Hurricane Ike caused extensive damage to the buildings, leaving the historic district fighting to survive, the group said. Also on the ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- There's little U.S. President Barack Obama or Senate conservatives can do to halt impeachment proceedings against Judge Jay Bybee, analysts say. The U.S. Appellate Court judge has riled liberals with revelations that, as head of the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel under the Bush administration in 2002, he signed off on legal opinions authorizing the use of harsh interrogation methods against terrorism suspects. Even though Obama and key U.S. senators have voiced opposition ... [full story]

HUDUR, Somalia -- Two European aid workers were freed by Somali gunmen in the country's Bakol region, clan elders said Tuesday. No ransom was paid to the kidnappers, who had demanded $4 million, elders told the Shabelle Media Network. The two workers, one Belgian and one Dutch, were working for Medecins Sans Frontieres when they were kidnapped April 10 near Hudur, the provincial capital of the Bakol region in southwestern Somalia. Copyright © 2009, by United Press International. All ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- U.S. congressional Democrats are considering sending hundreds of millions of dollars in emergency aid to Pakistan, sources told The Wall Street Journal. The money would be used to help stabilize the country, sources said. It could either be viewed as a "downpayment" on $1.4 billion included for Pakistan in U.S. President Barack Obama's proposed $83.4 billion war spending bill, which is on track for consideration this summer, or it may be moved separately "using "executive ... [full story]

JERUSALEM -- Remembrance Day ceremonies across Israel Tuesday began with sirens blaring for two minutes to honor Israelis who died defending the country. At the main ceremony in Jerusalem's Mount Herzl Cemetery, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu told a crowd of 100,000-plus that Israel would not compromise its security or relinquish control of its future while striving for peace, The Jerusalem Post reported. "Our hand is extended in peace to all our neighbors," Netanyahu said. "But our ... [full story]

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- About 30,000 people in Pakistan's Lower Dir region have been displaced because of a military offensive against Taliban militants, a local official said Tuesday. Iftikhar Hussain, Northwest Frontier province information director, said the displaced people fled from the Maidan area after the military offensive -- Operation Black Thunder -- began Sunday, the Pakistani newspaper Dawn reported. "We are making arrangements for them in Peshawar, Nowshera and Timargarah districts," Hussain said. One local non-profit organization ... [full story]