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President Obama met Tuesday with Republicans and Democrats in Congress to discuss Afghanistan. The meeting comes as Obama debates whether to increase troop levels in Afghanistan, as called for by his top commander in the country, Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

A British publisher launched an unusual book Monday — an authorized history of MI5, the British domestic intelligence agency. It's the first authorized history of any Western intelligence agency, and allowing an academic to write it and comb through the agency's files has raised some questions about why the agency's secrets shouldn't be kept secret.

Rescue workers are trying to find survivors from Wednesday's earthquake that hit Indonesia, killing more than 1,000 people. BBC reporter Rachel Harvey, who is in Padang, a city of 900,000 people, says parts of the city are unaffected while other parts are devastated.

Representatives from the U.S. and five other world powers outlined their concerns about Iran's nuclear program at a meeting in Switzerland with an Iranian delegation. U.S. officials held the highest-level direct talks with the Iranians in years.

Iranian envoys meet Thursday in Geneva with representatives from Europe, Russia, China and the U.S. for talks that will focus on Tehran's suspect nuclear program. The meeting comes as Iran's foreign minister visited Washington on Wednesday on a rare visit.

An earthquake early Tuesday in the south Pacific sent tsunami waves crashing into Samoa and American Samoa. Charles McCreery, director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, says he isn't sure if the warning reached people in time. But, he says, there would have been natural warning signs of a tsunami.

The U.S. Senate Finance Committee rejected a provision to include a government-run public insurance option as part of the effort to overhaul the health care system. The vote was 15-to-8 against the measure.

Although the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist says working in an office is his idea of hell, he admits loving fictional portrayals of the workplace. He talks with Steve Inskeep about some of his favorite literary takes on office life.

Most people think of the Cold War as a long, glacial period, but in the beginning it was dangerously unstable. Neil Sheehan, author of A Bright Shining Lie, says there might well have been nuclear war — had it not been for one man: the subject of his latest book, A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon.

G-20 leaders will likely leave Pittsburgh with an agreement to have banks build up their capital reserves while cutting back on bonuses and other forms of compensation. The new capital rules will be phased in and banks would have until the end of 2012 to meet the new requirements.