A long-term hunger strike is underway at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, with more than a dozen prisoners subjecting themselves to daily force-feeding to protest their treatment, military officials and lawyers for the detainees said. Thirteen detainees are now on hunger strikes, the largest number to endure the force-feeding regimen on an extended basis since early 2006, when the military broke a long-running strike with a new policy of strapping prisoners into restraint chairs while they are fed by plastic tubes inserted through their nostrils.

The North conducted its first-ever nuclear weapons test in October, drawing international condemnation. However, Pyongyang pledged initial steps to abandon its nuclear weapons programs in February during talks with the U.S. and other regional powers. Still, no further progress has been made in the standoff due to an unresolved issue relating to frozen North Korean funds. North Korea's top nuclear negotiator told a visiting American delegation Monday that his government would immediately invite U.N. inspectors into the country if $25 million in disputed North Korean funds are released to Pyongyang, U.S. officials said. Both papers covered the paper pretty similarily.

Because an ordinance intended to keep predators away from children made it nearly impossible for them to find housing, five convicted sex offenders are living under a highway bridge with the state's grudging approval. The five men under the Julia Tuttle Causeway are the only known sex offenders authorized to live outdoors in Florida, said state Corrections Department spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger. The conditions are a consequence of laws passed here and elsewhere around the country to bar sex offenders from living near schools, parks and other places children gather. The Pioneer Press did not give the story that much coverage, but the Tribune ran a really long article, with quotes fromt he men who live under the bridge and various peopl from Florida talking about the situation.

A pregnant cashier on Saturday shot a woman who attempted to rob a Super USA convenience store in St. Paul. The suspect entered the store at 1198 Earl St. about 7 p.m. and threatened the cashier with what she said was a gun under a bag, said St. Paul police Sgt. John Wuorinen. The cashier, who also was watching her young child at the store, grabbed a pistol from behind the counter and shot the suspect in the upper body. The woman is being treated at an area hospital. The story was reported way more in depth from the Tribune. They had quotes from neighbors and customers, where the Press just had a short story with the basic facts.

The three University of Minnesota football players arrested in connection with the alleged rape of an 18-year-old woman last week at the players' apartment complex remained in the Hennepin County jail on Sunday. Hennepin County prosecutors have until noon Monday to charge or release them, although they still can be charged after being released. As of Saturday evening, the players had not been formally charged. They were held with bail set $100,000 each. The three were arrested Friday on suspicion of raping an 18-year-old student, who does not attend the U, university police said. Bothe articles covered all the essential information, while the Pioneer Press had a lot more information including quotes from family members of the players and people who knew them.

The United States and South Korea successfully concluded a free trade agreement after almost 10 months of contentious negotiations, a U.S. official said Monday. The deal, which requires legislative approval in both countries, is the biggest for the United States since the North American Free Trade Agreement signed in 1992 and ratified in 1993. It is the biggest ever for South Korea. A spokesman said that more details of the deal would be provided later, so not much was known about the facts of the deal. Both articles were reported about the sme with details mixed here and there

A powerful undersea earthquake Monday in the South Pacific sent a tsunami several yards high crashing into the Solomon Islands, devastating at least one village, officials and residents said. A man who answered the telephone at the police station said there were initial reports that eight people, six of them children, had been killed by the tsunami but they were still unconfirmed. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake measured magnitude-8.0 and struck at 7:39 a.m. about 6 miles beneath the sea floor, 217 miles northwest of the capital, Honiara. The articles were pretty vague. Everything was unconfirmed, and nothing was really know about the current situation.

Two police officers shot during a struggle with a suspect outside an apartment complex died early Sunday, and a suspect was charged with murder, authorities said. Sean Clark, 34, and Jeffrey Shelton, 35, were responding to a disturbance call at the apartment complex in Charlotte late Saturday. They were shot in the parking lot, and both died at a hospital, according to police. The officers were both married and one of them was expecting a child. Both stories were reported about the same by the papers.

Herb Carneal, who began broadcasting for the Twins baseball team in 1962, died Sunday. He died of congestive heart failure at his home in Minnetonka, the team announced. He received the highest honor in baseball broadcasting in 1996 when he was named the recipient of the Ford C. Frick award. The tribune did a lot more coverage on this story where the pioneer press did more of a short obituary.

Two boys were found dead Sunday in a lake near their home on the Red Lake Indian Reservation. A volunteer search team found the bodies of the two young brothers encased in ice on the Red Lake Indian Reservation more than four months after they disappeared, authorities said. Tristan White, 4, and Avery Stately, 2, were reported missing Nov. 22 after they went out to play. The Red Lake reservation is the same place where 16-year-old Jeff Weise killed his grandfather and grandfather's companion on March 21, 2005, then went to the high school and killed seven more people, including a teacher and a security guard, before killing himself. The coverage from both news sources was similar. This ws coverage on diversity dur to the fact that it was on the reservation. There were not msny details and there wasn't much of a controversial issue so the story was fine.

Customers at some suburban pizza parlors in Cincinnati are getting wanted posters for parents accused of failing to pay child support. The idea is from Cynthia Brown, executive director of the Butler County Child Enforcement Agency, while she was ordering pizza. Other Ohio counties put posters on their Web sites and work with local Crime Stoppers programs, and a few contract with companies that can track people through rental and cell phone records, according to the Ohio Child Support Directors Association. Brown said her agency tries to work with parents by trying to help them find work and seeks most payments through civil court.

A report from the largest and longest-running study of American child care has found that keeping a preschooler in a day-care center for a year or more slightly increased the likelihood that the child would become disruptive in class -- and that the effect persisted through the sixth grade. The numbers presented in the story follows as: Every year spent in such centers for at least 10 hours per week was associated with a 1 percent higher score on a standardized assessment of problem behaviors. Sort of a confusing way to show this number but it works for me.

15 British Serviceman are being detained in Iran since Friday. British Prime Minister Tony Blair said that the Britons were in Iraqi, not Iranian, waters and warning that Britain viewed their situation as "very serious." Rice commented on the situation saying that she believed the British account to be accurate. There is now legal proceedings underway that will decide the fate of the 15 men. Both papers printed the story pretty similarly, just some quotes here and there that were different.

A 17-year-old teen was shot and killed in ST. ANthony on Wednesday. Few details have emerged about the late-night shooting in which Bryant O. Garroutte was killed. The suspect, a 16-year-old Twin Cities boy, has declined to speak with police without first consulting his attorney. The Tribune had a quote from the grandmother of the boy who was killed saying that it was an accident and that the other teen was like a member of their family.