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Need to know: President Barack Obama will attend climate-change talks in Copenhagen next month, offering an emissions-cut goal of about 17 percent by 2020 after legislation to reduce greenhouse gases stalled in Congress.

Want to know: Under an unwritten policy, presidents have not sent letters to survivors of troops who took their own lives. But at a time when the Pentagon is trying to destigmatize mental health care, the question of whether the survivors of military suicides deserve presidential recognition has taken on new significance.

Dull but important: The government of Dubai, in a blunt acknowledgment of the severity of its financial position, said it had asked its banks for a six-month stay on its schedule of debt repayments.

Just because: From pills to lasers to cream, what's fueling the boom in skin-whitening procedures across Asia?

A website has published what it says are 573,000 intercepted pager messages sent during the 9/11 attacks. Wikileaks says it will not reveal who gave it the messages — some of which are from federal agencies. Internet analysts say they believe the messages are genuine but federal authorities have refused to comment.

Wacky: Whether or not you consider President Obama's visit to China to have been a diplomatic success, it did manage to turn one young Chinese woman into the country's version of the infamous "Obama Girl."

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