AP - Rep. Bobby Rush says he doesn't think any U.S. senator would be caught turning a black man away from serving alongside them.

AP - Illinois U.S. Senate appointee Roland Burris is leaving for Washington on Monday afternoon for a high-stakes showdown on Capitol Hill about whether he'll succeed President-elect Barack Obama in Congress.

Reuters - Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC was examined at least eight times in 16 years by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other regulators, who often came armed with suspicions, the Wall Street Journal said.

Reuters - Israeli tanks, planes and ground forces pounded Gaza on Monday and the defense minister said the offensive against Hamas militants in the Palestinian enclave would go on until Israel was safe.

Reuters - U.S. securities regulators obtained an emergency court order to stop an alleged Ponzi scheme that collected more than $23 million from thousands of investors in Florida's Haitian-American community, the Securities and Exchange Commission said on Tuesday.

Reuters - Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich defied fellow Democrats by appointing a successor on Tuesday to fill Barack Obama's vacant U.S. Senate seat -- the seat the governor is charged with trying to sell to the highest bidder.