World/Nation
• Turkish leader: Islamic State may seize town
MURSITPINAR, Turkey - Islamic State fighters were poised to capture a strategic Syrian town on the Turkish border, Turkey's president warned Tuesday, even as Kurdish forces battled to expel the extremists from their footholds on the outskirts.
The outgunned Kurdish fighters struggling to defend Kobani got a small boost from a series of U.S.-led airstrikes against the militants, which sent huge columns of black smoke into the sky. Limited coalition strikes have done little to blunt the Islamic State group's three-week offensive, and its fighters have relentlessly shelled the town in preparation for a final assault.
Warning that the aerial campaign alone was not enough to halt the Islamic State group's advance, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for greater cooperation with the Syrian opposition, which is fighting both the extremists and forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad.
• Ebola's victims may include dog of infected woman
Ebola's victims may include a dog named Excalibur. Officials in Madrid got a court order to euthanize the pet of a Spanish nursing assistant with Ebola because of the chance the animal might spread the disease.
At least one major study suggests that dogs can be infected with the deadly virus without having symptoms. But whether or how likely they are to spread it to people is less clear.
Lab experiments on other animals suggest their urine, saliva or stool might contain the virus. That means that in theory, people might catch it through an infected dog licking or biting them, or from grooming.
"Clearly we want to look at all possibilities. We have not identified this as a means of transmission," said Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The nursing assistant and her husband have been in isolation since she tested positive for Ebola earlier this week. She was part of team at a Madrid hospital which cared for a missionary priest who died of Ebola.
• North Korea acknowledges labor camps
UNITED NATIONS - A North Korean official publicly acknowledged to the international community the existence of his country's "reform through labor" camps Tuesday, a mention that appeared to come in response to a highly critical U.N. human rights report earlier this year.
Diplomats for the reclusive, impoverished country also told reporters that a top North Korea official has visited the headquarters of the European Union and expressed interest in dialogue, with discussions on human rights expected next year.
North Korea's deputy U.N. ambassador Ri Tong Il said the secretary of his country's ruling Workers' Party had visited the EU, and that "we are expecting end of this year to open political dialogue between the two sides." The human rights dialogue would follow.
• Conservative states balk at gay marriage
WICHITA, Kan. - Conservative officials in some of the six states where Supreme Court action this week likely cleared the way for same-sex weddings say they won't issue marriage licenses to gay couples until their hands are forced. Now, gay rights advocates are preparing to do just that.
James Esseks, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Transgender Project, called the court's action a "watershed moment for the entire country," and other gay rights activists described plans Tuesday to challenge remaining bans.
On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to take up appeals from five states seeking to preserve their bans. Six other states - Colorado, Kansas, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Wyoming - would be bound by those same appellate rulings that were put on hold.
In Kansas, Attorney General Derek Schmidt noted that to date no court has squarely decided whether the Kansas Constitution's prohibition on same-sex marriage is invalid, and he said the state will deal with any litigation as it comes. Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, fighting a close re-election battle, wants to defend the ban.
"The people have spoken on this," Brownback said. "I don't know how much more you can bolster it than to have a vote of the people to put in the constitution that marriage is the union of a man and a woman."
• Health law's tax penalty waiver is tough to obtain
WASHINGTON - Millions of Americans may qualify for waivers from the most unpopular part of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. But getting that exemption could be an ordeal.
Community groups are concerned about a convoluted process for waivers from the law's tax penalty on people who remain uninsured. Not everyone is complaining, however: Tax preparation companies are flagging it as a business opportunity.
The law's requirement that Americans carry health insurance remains contentious. Waivers were designed to ease the impact. But while some exemptions seem simple, others will require math calculations.
Some involve sending in the application by mail and supporting documents, such as copies of medical bills, police reports, obituaries, utility shut-off notices - even news articles.
• LED there be light: Scientists win Nobel Prize
STOCKHOLM - An invention that promises to revolutionize the way the world lights its homes and offices - and already helps create the glowing screens of mobile phones, computers and TVs- earned a Nobel Prize on Tuesday for two Japanese scientists and a Japanese-born American.
By inventing a new kind of light-emitting diode, or LED, they overcame a crucial roadblock for creating white light far more efficiently than incandescent or fluorescent bulbs. Now LEDs are pervasive and experts say their use will only grow.
"Incandescent light bulbs lit the 20th century; the 21st century will be lit by LED lamps," the Nobel committee said in announcing its award to Japanese researchers Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano and naturalized U.S. citizen Shuji Nakamura.
Their work, done in the early 1990s, led to a fundamental transformation of technology for illumination, the committee said. And when the three arrive in Stockholm to collect their awards in early December, "they will hardly fail to notice the light from their invention glowing in virtually all the windows of the city."
- The Associated Press