Top Stories - AP

CLEARWATER, Fla. - The Coast Guard on Monday narrowed the search area for two NFL players and a third man missing since a weekend fishing trip off the Florida Gulf Coast after crews rescued a fourth man clinging to their capsized boat.

WASHINGTON - Another Obama administration nominee has tax troubles. This time, it's Ron Kirk, the president's choice to be U.S. trade representative. Kirk owes an estimated $10,000 in back taxes from earlier in the decade and has agreed to pay them, the Senate Finance Committee said Monday.

NEW YORK - A ferocious storm packing freezing rain, heavy snow and furious wind gusts paralyzed most of the East Coast on Monday, sending dozens of cars careening into ditches, grounding hundreds of flights and closing school for millions of kids.

HAVANA - President Raul Castro abruptly ousted some of Cuba's most powerful officials Monday, remaking the government in the biggest shakeup since he took over from his ailing brother Fidel Castro a year ago. The changes replaced some key Fidel loyalists, including the longtime foreign minister, with men closer to Raul. They also reduced the enormous powers of a vice president credited with saving Cuba's economy after the fall of the Soviet Union.

NEW YORK - Bernard Madoff is seeking to keep a $7 million Manhattan penthouse and an additional $62 million in assets, saying they are unrelated to the fraud that authorities say cost victims more than $50 billion. In court papers filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Madoff and his lawyer claim the apartment, $45 million in municipal bonds and $17 million more in a separate account all belong to Madoff's wife, Ruth.

BATON ROUGE, La. - Widely panned for his national TV address, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal offered his first defense of the speech Monday, saying he sticks by the message, while acknowledging shortcomings in his delivery.

NEW YORK - Almost a year after Jimmy Fallon was named new host of NBC's "Late Night," and 10 days after predecessor Conan O'Brien departed, Fallon made his debut Monday.

OMAHA, Neb. - A man who tried to cool out his hyper cat by stuffing her into a boxlike homemade bong faces cruelty charges — and catcalls from animal lovers. Lancaster County sheriff's deputies responding to a domestic disturbance call Sunday alleged they saw 20-year-old Acea Schomaker smoking marijuana through a piece of garden hose attached to a duct-taped, plastic glass box in which the cat had been stuffed.

MIAMI - This time, the Miami Heat were witnesses, not winners, because of a fourth-quarter comeback.

RALEIGH, N.C. - The North Carolina mother who reported for Army duty with her two young children will be discharged from the military, her attorney said Monday. Attorney Mark Waple of Fayetteville said it wasn't yet clear if Lisa Pagan would receive an honorable discharge or a general discharge under honorable conditions. It also wasn't certain when she would be discharged.

CHICAGO - Rod Blagojevich, the first U.S. governor in more than 20 years to be removed from office by impeachment, signed a deal Monday to write a book "exposing the dark side of politics," his publicist said.

WASHINGTON - Jason Taylor will have plenty of time to dance on TV this year. The former NFL defensive player of the year's disappointing turn in the nation's capital came to an end Monday when he was cut by the Washington Redskins for refusing to commit to the team's offseason workout program.

WASHINGTON - A 300-million-year-old fossilized brain has been discovered by researchers studying a type of fish that once lived in what is now Kansas and Oklahoma.

WASHINGTON - A new definition of desperate times: Even as the government threw a stunning new $30 billion lifeline to American International Group on Monday, the beleaguered insurance giant confirmed it had lost more than twice that much, $62 billion, in a single three-month period.

JUPITER, Fla. - Alex Rodriguez says he's happy to put behind him a meeting with baseball officials about his use of steroids more than five years ago.

NEW YORK - A relentless sell-off in the stock market Monday blew through barriers that would have been unthinkable just weeks ago, and investors warned there was no reason to believe buyers will return anytime soon.

WASHINGTON - The CIA destroyed nearly 100 videotapes of interrogations and other U.S. treatment of terror suspects, far more than previously acknowledged, the Obama administration said Monday as it began disclosing details of post-Sept. 11 Bush-era actions.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama's choice to lead the Health and Human Services Department has a history of bucking the insurance industry, which faces the biggest hit under Obama's initial health care reform plan.

CAIRO - Belgian archaeologists have unearthed a 3,500-year-old pharaonic official's tomb that had disappeared under sand in southern Egypt after it was first discovered about 130 years ago. Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said in a statement Sunday that the Belgian team in Luxor uncovered the tomb of Amenhotep, the deputy seal-bearer for King Thutmose III who ruled Egypt in the 18th Dynasty.

SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt - U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday that Israel cannot "just sit and take rockets" from Gaza terrorizing its citizens as she stressed the Obama administration's commitment to finding a peaceful existence for Israelis and Palestinians.

ATLANTA - Members of Georgia-based assisted suicide ring at the center of a growing investigation went to great lengths to hide evidence of their work, authorities say, donning latex gloves, destroying paperwork and bringing along grocery bags to trash items.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - American International Group Inc., once the world's largest insurer, said Monday it lost $61.7 billion in the fourth quarter, the biggest quarterly loss in U.S. corporate history, amid continued financial market turmoil.

WASHINGTON - Consumer spending and incomes rose more than expected at the start of the year, but the gains were seen as fleeting in light of the recession and the waves of layoffs battering Americans.

CHICAGO - In a stunning improvement in children's health, far fewer kids have high lead levels than 20 years ago, new government research reports — a testament to aggressive efforts to get lead out of paint, water and soil.

LOS ANGELES - "Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail" wasn't paroled from the top spot at the box office, taking No. 1 for a second straight weekend and raking in $16.1 million. The comedy bested "Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience," which rocked out with $12.5 million. Oscar champion "Slumdog Millionaire" finished third with $12 million.

LAHORE, Pakistan - A dozen masked gunmen armed with rifles and rocket launchers attacked vehicles carrying members of Sri Lanka's national cricket team in east Pakistan on Tuesday, wounding at least two players and killing five police officers, officials said.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Harold Shippee and his co-workers had one big question after learning in October that the metal plant where they worked for a quarter-century would close as it struggled with a tanking economy.

BOSTON - Mary Ritchie, a Massachusetts State Police trooper, has been married for almost five years and has two children. But when she files her federal income tax return, she's not allowed to check the "married filing jointly" box.