Roland Burris tried to take President-elect Barack Obama's Illinois Senate seat Tuesday but failed in a scripted piece of political theater staged just before the opening of the 111th Congress. "Mr. Burris is not in possession of the necessary credentials from the state of Illinois," declared Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

President-elect Barack Obama is defending his unexpected CIA nominee Leon Panetta, who faced a surge of skepticism in Congress on Tuesday but is not expected to draw serious opposition when his confirmation reaches the Senate Intelligence Committee.

A cross-dressing, millionaire Harvard dermatologist serving life in prison for shooting his estranged wife to death has been found hanged in his cell, a prison spokeswoman said Tuesday.

German billionaire Adolf Merckle threw himself in front of a train after his business empire, which included interests ranging from VW cars to pharmaceuticals to cement, ran into trouble in the global financial crisis, his family said Tuesday.

Israeli mortar shells struck outside a U.N. school where hundreds of Palestinians had sought refuge on Tuesday, killing at least 30 people _ many of them children whose parents wailed in grief at a hospital filled with dead and wounded.