Monday's Headlines: Steele, Republicans Call for Reid's Resignation

Republicans stepped up their efforts Sunday to force a resignation from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid after a new book detailed racially insensitive comments made by the Nevada Democrat during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said Reid should resign for saying that Barack Obama could become the nation's first black president because he was "light-skinned" and because he did not speak with a "Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."

"There is this standard where Democrats feel that they can say these things and they can apologize when it comes from the mouths of their own," Steele said on "Fox News Sunday." He added, "But if it comes from anyone else, it is racism."

Democrats, meanwhile, are launching a counter-offensive, according to Politico. Among the measures being planned in support of Reid: distributing the NAACP vote ratings of Republicans who have scolded the majority leader.

For his part, President Obama has accepted an apology from Reid, saying that "as far as I'm concerned, the book is closed." Still, Omar Wasow of the Root can't help but wonder if Reid was simply being honest about how voters respond to candidates' skin color.

*

Three U.S. soldiers were killed Monday fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan, according to NATO officials. In a separate attack, one French soldier was killed and another injured northeast of Kabul.

The attack occurred a day after a British correspondent and a U.S. Marine were killed by a roadside bomb in the same area. Sunday Mirror journalist Rupert Hamer and photographer Philip Coburn were accompanying a U.S. Marine patrol Saturday when their vehicle was hit by a makeshift bomb near the village of Nawa, the British Defense Ministry said. Coburn was seriously wounded.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has submitted a new list of 16 cabinet nominees, after Afghanistan's parliament rejected an earlier round of 17 names. The new list includes none of the names rejected by the nation's parliament last week.

*

On Monday, a federal court in San Francisco will begin the nation's first trial to determine whether voters have the power to prohibit same-sex couples from marrying.

*

President Obama told People magazine he has "no intention" of sending American forces to battle al-Qaida militants in either Yemen or Somalia, emphasizing he believes the heart of the battle is still along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

*

Aluminum maker Alcoa kicks off earnings season Monday. Analysts are forecasting fourth-quarter earnings for many companies to be nearly triple what they were a year ago.

*

North Korea on Monday called for establishing a formal peace treaty with the United States to replace the truce that ended the Korean War 57 years ago, hinting it would not give up its nuclear ambitions until such an accord is signed.