NEW YORK (AP) — The Standard & Poor's ratings agency said Monday it's getting more optimistic about the U.S. economy. But investors just yawned.

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) — An acquaintance says the mother of the gunman who killed five people in Santa Monica, Calif., is in mourning and is trying to make sense of what happened.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and Congress need to rethink the broad authority for the use of military force in the war on terror, a law written when many U.S. troops now on the battlefield were on playgrounds, a House Democrat who wants the law repealed said Monday.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Connecticut's leading role in aviation has never been disputed, but legislators have passed a bill insisting that a Connecticut aviator flew two years before the Wright brothers at Kitty Hawk, N.C.

WASHINGTON (AP) — For someone with a reputation for seeking varying points of view before staking out a position or offering advice, Jason Furman was once, well, quite the risk taker.

BOSTON (AP) — As reputed gangster James "Whitey" Bulger goes on trial, his former stomping grounds in South Boston are sure to be the backdrop for much of the testimony.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is poised to pass a five-year, half-trillion-dollar farm bill Monday that would expand government subsidies for crop insurance, rice and peanuts while making small cuts in the food stamp program.

NEW YORK (AP) — Newly crowned Tony Award winner "Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike" has gotten a new lease on life but one of its original actresses will be leaving.

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Kobe Bryant reached a settlement with a New Jersey auction house that allows his mother sell a small amount of his memorabilia, while also getting an apology from his parents, who thanked him for his financial support.

JONESBORO, Ga. (AP) — Former NBA All-Star Daron "Mookie" Blaylock is out of the hospital and in jail, charged with vehicular homicide in a car crash south of Atlanta.

In a story June 7 about J.C. Penney's new home department, The Associated Press reported erroneously Ordning & Reda is a U.K. firm. In fact, it is based in Sweden.

BAGHDAD (AP) — A wave of car bombings rocked central and northern Iraq on Monday, killing at least 57 people and extending the deadliest eruption of violence to hit the country in years.

NEW YORK (AP) — The stock market is closing mostly lower after investors were unimpressed by a rating agency's brighter outlook on the U.S. government's credit rating.

By John Whitesides WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A contractor at the National Security Agency who leaked details of top-secret U.S. surveillance programs dropped out of sight in Hong Kong on Monday, ahead of a likely push by the U.S. government to have him sent back to the United States to face charges. Edward Snowden, 29, who provided the information for published reports last week that revealed the NSA's broad monitoring of phone call and Internet data from large companies such as Google and Facebook, checked out of his Hong Kong hotel hours after going public in a video released on Sunday. ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — At least a dozen children or other relatives of Energy Department officials have received summer jobs at the department in apparent violation of federal nepotism rules, an agency watchdog said Monday.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Apple announced a digital radio service, new MacBook Air laptops and updates to its operating systems for Mac and mobile devices Monday.

By David Gaffen and Daniel Bases NEW YORK (Reuters) - Standard & Poor's on Monday removed the near-term threat of another credit rating downgrade for the United States by revising its outlook to stable from negative, citing an improved economic and fiscal outlook. The change effectively means there is less than a one-third chance of a downgrade in the next two years. S&P said a key factor to its revision in the U.S. rating outlook was the agreement reached by the U.S. Congress to avoid the 'fiscal cliff', which had threatened some $600 billion in automatic tax increases and spending cuts. ...

By Gulsen Solaker ANKARA (Reuters) - Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has agreed to meet on Wednesday with leaders of the movement whose peaceful protests in Istanbul spiraled into a wave of anti-government demonstrations across Turkey. Erdogan has repeatedly dismissed the protesters as "capulcular", or riff-raff. But Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said on Monday leaders of the Gezi Park Platform group had asked to meet him in an effort to end unrest in which police have blasted demonstrators with tear gas and water cannon. ...

VIENNA (AP) — An official says Austria will begin withdrawing its 377 U.N. peacekeepers from the Golan Heights on Wednesday.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The city's top prosecutor announced Monday he would convene an investigating grand jury to look into a building collapse that killed six people and injured 13 others last week.