THE TENSION: The Decline and Fall of Western Civ for 6 Nov.

After reading: wash, rinse and repeat.

The Sun-Sentinel reports Elections Offices in Broward, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade County released voting figures on Monday of early voting and absentee ballots that have been cast in Tuesday's elections. In the tri-county area, 12.7 percent of all registered voters have already voted. Read it.

Wall Street roared back Monday, erasing its losses of last week after private-equity buyout deals involving companies such as Four Seasons Hotels Inc. (FS) and OSI Restaurant Partners Inc. (OSI) revived investors' belief that stocks still have room to run. The Dow Jones industrials shot up 119 points, according to A P. The gains came a day ahead of the U.S. midterm elections, though the prospect of a power shift in Congress didn't seem to unnerve investors.

"I think what you're seeing on the tape is a reflection of the amount of money that has been raised in the private equity pools and that money is starting to go to work," said John O'Donoghue, co-head of equities at Cowen & Co.

A P also reports the price of gasoline has fallen to its lowest level in more than 10 months. The federal Energy Information Administration said Monday that U.S. motorists paid $2.20 a gallon on average for regular grade last week, a decrease of 1.8 cents from the previous week.

Al Qaeda terrorists planned to use "dirty bombs" to blow up the Heathrow Express or a Tube train passing under the Thames, a court heard today, according to the Daily Mail.

The catastrophic results would have produced "another black day for the enemies of Islam and victory for the Muslims."

Reuters reports a Palestinian suicide bomber blew herself up near Israeli troops on Monday in a Gaza town where Israeli forces had killed two women acting as human shields for militants, residents said.

Here's 13 more good reasons why the U.S. must never relinquish control over the Internet to the U.N. The campaigning group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) on Monday listed 13 countries it labelled as "enemies of the Internet" ahead of a 24 hour campaign in favour of free access to the web, reports AFP.

The 13 countries are: Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Myanmar, China, North Korea, Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Uzbekistan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkmenistan and Vietnam.

AP reports the USS Intrepid, the aircraft carrier that survived World War II bomb and kamikaze attacks, got stuck in the mud in the Hudson River on Monday as tugboats tried to pull it from its berth.

First Borat, now Bond and Saddam Hussein. Web saboteurs have posted info on Wikipedia claiming Daniel Craig, the new 007, and Saddam Hussein are dead. Sky News reports it is the third bout of Web vandalism to hit the online encyclopedia in less than a day.