Wall Street Journal Top Online Stories: Tue 11/16/10

The Wall Street Journal lead headline online early Tuesday morning says "Tea Party Wins GOP Vow to Ban Earmarks." The paper says in a swift victory for tea-party activists, the Senate's top Republican, Mitch McConnell, agreed to a plan to ban GOP members from proposing earmarks for spending bills.

The paper says Iran plans to conduct war games this week to showcase its air-defense capabilities, prepare against missile strikes and warn others against attacking amid questions about whether Tehran will proceed with negotiations over its nuclear program.

It says White House National Economic Council Director Larry Summers said the U.S. relationship with China will be the "central American challenge" in redeveloping the U.S. economy.

The paper says China's national economic strategy is disrupting the world's powers' generally agreed-upon wisdom of letting market competition shape economic outcomes.

It says bucking the Federal Reserve's efforts to push interest rates lower, investors are selling off U.S. government debt, driving rates in many cases to their highest levels in more than three months.

And the most popular story says Apple is preparing to disclose its iTunes Store will soon start carrying music by the Beatles, according to people familiar with the situation, a move that would fill a glaring gap in its digital collection.