Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says bringing the budget together is "tough as all hell".

A crown prosecutor is missing in bushland north of Newcastle, NSW police say.

AP - A high-speed passenger train jumped the tracks and slammed into another train in eastern China on Monday, killing at least 66 people and injuring more than 400, a state news agency reported.

AP - Battling risky economic crosscurrents, the Federal Reserve is ready to bump down a key interest rate again to brace the wobbly economy. That rate cut could turn out to be the last one for a while as zooming energy and food prices heighten inflation concerns.

Reuters - Iran will hand over to Russia a package
of proposals designed to defuse a nuclear row with world
powers, an Iranian official said on Monday without giving
details.

AP - U.S. and Iraqi troops killed 38 militants in fierce clashes with militants in Baghdad, including 22 who attacked a military checkpoint in a Shiite militia stronghold, the U.S. military said Monday.

Reuters - Two passenger trains collided in
eastern China on Monday, killing at least 66 people and
injuring hundreds as carriages derailed and toppled into a
ditch, state media said.

AP - Miley Cyrus is taking issue with a photo of herself thats going around, and its not another amateur, truth-or-dare Internet snapshot ? its the handiwork of Annie Leibovitz.

AP - Firefighters gained ground Sunday against an early season wildfire that slowly chewed its way through dense brush near Los Angeles, forcing more than 1,000 people from homes in the foothills.

AP - The Olympic torch began its first-ever run through North Korea on Monday, where the flame was assured of a trip free of the anti-Chinese protests that marked other legs of the relay.