Exclusive to Yahoo! News - Just how bad could things get for the Democrats when voters head to the polls in November?

AFP - World champion Valentino Rossi led emotional tributes to Shoya Tomizawa, the Japanese rider killed at San Marino, describing the teenager as a very good rider with a great future ahead of him.

AP - Army troops took control of the center of the New Zealand city of Christchurch on Monday, two days after a powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake smashed buildings and homes, wrecked roads and rail lines — but caused no loss of life.

AP - A third man survived last month's massacre of 72 migrants by suspected drug traffickers in Mexico and is now in the United States, Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes said Sunday.

AFP - Germany will extend the life of its 17 nuclear reactors by 12 years on average, Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen announced Monday after marathon talks on the controversial issue.

Reuters - Australia's Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard is strongly tipped to form a new minority government within 48 hours, ending a fortnight-long political limbo with the backing of three kingmaker independents.

AP - President Barack Obama hopes to improve the fortunes of suddenly imperiled Wisconsin Democrats as he celebrates Labor Day with the state's union workers on Monday.

AP - Craiglist's "adult services" section has been shut down in the U.S., but prostitution on the Internet is alive and well — even, quite possibly, on Craigslist.

AP - Torrential rains from a tropical depression caused landslides that have killed at least 38 people in Guatemala — some of them rescuers trying to save people already buried under a wall of mud.

AP - Two boats capsized over the weekend in separate incidents on Congo's vast rivers, leaving 70 people dead and 200 others feared dead, and both vessels were heavily loaded and operating with few safety measures, officials said Sunday.

AP - A flight attendant who captured America's attention when he told off a plane full of passengers and then slid down an emergency chute resigned from his job last week and wasn't fired, his lawyer said Sunday.

AP - While a fire warms their campsite, the icy feeling between Cristina Nunez Macias and her mother-in-law is as palpable as the cold Atacama desert.

AFP - More than a dozen vehicles including three fuel tankers and two mini-buses caught fire Sunday in a pile-up on a Nigerian highway, site of a deadly multi-car crash three weeks ago, an AFP photographer reported.

AP - Iran's president said Sunday that any Israeli attack against his nation would mean the destruction of the Jewish state.

AP - Days after the U.S. officially ended combat operations and touted Iraq's ability to defend itself, American troops found themselves battling heavily armed militants assaulting an Iraqi military headquarters in the center of Baghdad on Sunday. The fighting killed 12 people and wounded dozens.

Reuters - The U.S. economy appears to be trudging along, neither booming nor busting, growing steadily enough to diminish double-dip recession fears but not quickly enough to bring down unemployment.

AP - Israeli and Palestinian leaders plan talks with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Jerusalem this month. The setting is a symbolic move to show the seriousness of peace negotiations.

AP - Government officials from around the world used to come to this port city to catch a glimpse of the future: Two-story piles of trash would disappear into a furnace and eventually be transformed into electricity to power thousands of homes.

AP - Investigators looking into what went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are a step closer to answers now that a key piece of evidence is secure aboard a ship.

AP - Investigators looking into what went wrong in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill are a step closer to answers now that a key piece of evidence is secure aboard a ship.

AP - Duong Nghe Ly can't wait to begin his senior year at South Philadelphia High School. A day of violence there last year changed his life, and he wants to learn if his school has been transformed as well.

AP - Government agencies are seeking broad new authority to ramp up killings and removals of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies and Great Lakes, despite two recent court actions that restored the animal's endangered status in every state except Alaska and Minnesota.

AP - It is a place of sacrifice. A place of mourning. A place people pass by on their way to grab lunch. It's a place where tourists crane their necks to snatch a glimpse around barriers walling off an enormous construction site — which is also what it is.

AP - Motivated by the deaths of two friends in war-zone explosions, 1st Lt. Timothy Dwyer decided to become a bomb hunter.

Reuters - The U.S. government is likely to take a loss on General Motors Co in the first offering of the automaker's stock, six people familiar with preparations for the landmark IPO said.

AP - In the turbulent year of the tea party, Republican Rep. Mike Castle of Delaware set out to jangle no nerves as he ran for a Senate seat long held by Vice President Joseph Biden. It's the way Republican strategists originally envisioned 2010, a roster of seasoned politicians pointing the party toward significant gains in the Senate.