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Narcissists like to be in charge, so it stands to reason that a new study shows individuals who are overconfident about their abilities are most likely to step in as leaders, be they politicians or power brokers.

KATMANDU, Nepal - Hindu and Buddhist priests chanted sacred hymns and cascaded flowers and grains of rice over a 3-year-old girl who was appointed a living goddess in Nepal on Tuesday.

REYKJAVIK, Iceland - This volcanic island near the Arctic Circle is on the brink of becoming the first "national bankruptcy" of the global financial meltdown.

WASHINGTON - Days after it got a federal bailout, American International Group Inc. spent $440,000 on a posh California retreat for its executives, complete with spa treatments, banquets and golf outings, according to lawmakers investigating the company's meltdown.

WASHINGTON - Republican John McCain expressed incredulity in the presidential debate Tuesday that Democrat Barack Obama would tip off the enemy by saying publicly that he'd attack al-Qaida in Pakistan under certain conditions. "Remarkable," McCain said during the presidential debate, meaning remarkably irresponsible.

JUAREZ, Mexico - A 990-pound bedridden man who had appealed on Mexican television for help tackling his weight problem died Tuesday of heart failure, his family said.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Barack Obama and John McCain clashed repeatedly over the causes and cures for the worst economic crisis in 80 years Tuesday night in a debate in which Republican McCain called for sweeping action by the government to directly shield many homeowners from mortgage foreclosure.

TIJUANA, Mexico (Reuters) - Bodies are cut up and dumped in acid. Victims are stripped naked and hung from bridges. Others have their tongues cut out before being murdered -- Mexican gangs are using horrifying methods to outdo each other in an already harrowing drugs war.

BARCELONA, Spain (Reuters) - A "deadly dozen" diseases ranging from avian flu to yellow fever are likely to spread more because of climate change, the Wildlife Conservation Society said on Tuesday.

LAS VEGAS - Nevada authorities seized records Tuesday from a group they accused of submitting fraudulent voter-registration forms — including for the starting lineup of the Dallas Cowboys.

GREENVILLE, S.C. - Federal agents swept through a chicken processing plant Tuesday, detaining more than 300 suspected illegal immigrants, sending panicked workers running and screaming through the hallways. Worried relatives collected outside, fearful their loved ones would be deported.

WASHINGTON - A U.S. military officer warned Pentagon officials that an American detainee was being driven nearly insane by months of punishing isolation and sensory deprivation in a U.S. military brig, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

Twenty-eight days to go and the most recent polls show Sen. Barack Obama continues to widen his lead against Sen. John McCain.

WASHINGTON - Americans' retirement plans have lost as much as $2 trillion in the past 15 months — about 20 percent of their value — Congress' top budget analyst estimated Tuesday as lawmakers began investigating how turmoil in the financial industry is whittling away workers' nest eggs.

HONG KONG (Reuters) - The sell-off in Asian stocks accelerated after a devastating day on Wall Street and Hong Kong became the latest economy to slash interest rates as pressure grew for a coordinated, global response to the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

WASHINGTON — A nearly completed high-level U.S. intelligence analysis warns that unresolved ethnic and sectarian tensions in Iraq could unleash a new wave of violence, potentially reversing the major security and political gains achieved over the last year.

WASHINGTON - Barack Obama has his William Ayers connection. Now John McCain may have an Iran-Contra connection. In the 1980s, McCain served on the advisory board to the U.S. chapter of an international group linked to ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America.

GREENVILLE, N.C. - After weeks of limited contact with the news media, Republican vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin ventured to the back of her campaign plane Tuesday and answered several questions from reporters.

BOSTON - Five Massachusetts men became the first divers to reach the wreck of a 19th-century steamship that sank in one of the most destructive storms in New England history, and say they saw an array of artifacts like dishes and mugs but no human remains.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two television commercials for Bayer AG's birth control pill Yaz give a misleading impression of its benefits, U.S. health regulators warned the company in a letter released on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Tuesday signaled a readiness to lower U.S. interest rates in a dramatic shift to support an economy battered by a financial crisis of "historic dimension."

WASHINGTON - Dusting off Depression-era emergency powers, the Federal Reserve is extending its reach over the economy as never before, pushing the limits of its authority, if not exceeding them.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks tumbled for a fifth straight session on Tuesday, capping the Dow's biggest five-day point loss ever, as fears mounted that the rapidly spreading credit crisis would drag the economy into a deep recession.