Some congressional offices outside Washington and media organizations have received threatening letters containing a suspicious powdery substance that was tested and proved to be harmless, the FBI and the Senate's top...More >>
A Virginia man charged with plotting a suicide bombing inside the U.S. Capitol as part of an FBI sting will remain in jail while he awaits trial after he waived his right to a detention hearing Wednesday.More >>
A 73-year-old gunman entangled in a love triangle shot and killed the treasurer of a remote-controlled airplane club who police said was having an affair with the estranged wife of the attacker.More >>
A train packed with morning commuters slammed into a downtown station on Wednesday, killing 49 people and injuring hundreds as passenger cars crumpled and windows exploded around them. It was Argentina's worst train...More >>
Elections officials in southwest Ohio have come up with a quick ballot fix after the death of a coroner candidate running unopposed in a Democratic primary.More >>
Two young children who police say were kidnapped from the side of an Atlanta-area interstate early Wednesday are safe but authorities are looking for the man who took them and later dropped them off with friends, authorities...More >>
A teenager on a flight from Portland to Houston who caused a ruckus by swinging his fist at an attendant and praising Osama bin Laden as the flight turned around was indicted Wednesday on charges of interfering with the...More >>
Union members went to federal court Wednesday to ask a judge to block Indiana's new right-to-work law from being enforced, the first lawsuit and latest conflict over the divisive legislation.More >>
The grandmother and stepmother of a 9-year-old Alabama girl who died after witnesses said she was forced to run for three hours as punishment for lying have been charged with murder and are being held in jail.More >>
A spokesperson for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel says the former Newark police chief didn't talk about a secret NYPD operation to spy on Muslims in New Jersey's largest city before he was hired to lead the Chicago force.More >>
A New York court decision has bolstered a movement among towns determined to prevent the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas within their borders.More >>
Authorities are using a court order to determine if a serial cabin burglar in the southern Utah wilderness is using a cell phone to call his family.More >>
A Canadian awaiting execution in Montana for a 1982 killing said Wednesday that he thinks there is a good chance the governor will spare his life now that he's a far different person than the out-of-control youth that...More >>
The Obama administration's top immigration official said Wednesday he wants to keep more foreign-born high-tech entrepreneurs in the U.S. But to make that happen, he said he needs those entrepreneurs to turn their...More >>
All runways at Denver International Airport are now available for arrivals and departures, after high winds limited landings to two east-west runways.More >>
The bulk of a man's childhood comic book collection that included many of the most prized issues ever published sold at auction Wednesday for about $3.5 million.More >>
The mayor and police director of New Jersey's largest city said Wednesday the New York Police Department misled their city and never told them it was conducting a widespread spying operation on Newark's Muslim...More >>
A former District of Columbia police commander whose division provided a police escort to actor Charlie Sheen has given notice that he intends to file a whistleblower lawsuit against the city.More >>
By dawn on Wednesday, stately St. Charles Avenue, where tens of thousands spent Mardi Gras feasting, drinking and scrambling for beads, was cleared of mountains of trash left behind by revelers.More >>
Last weekend, 14-year-old Ashley Long told her parents she was going to a slumber party. But instead of spending the night watching videos and eating popcorn two blocks away, she piled into a car with a bunch of her friends...More >>
A Georgia man filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Boy Scouts of America, contending he was sexually abused as a teenager by a nationally prominent Iowa scoutmaster in the 1970s.More >>
Boston College is challenging a federal judge's order to hand over interviews with seven former Irish Republican Army members to U.S. government officials.More >>
President Barack Obama rolled out a corporate tax overhaul plan Wednesday that lowers rates but also eliminates loopholes and subsidies cherished by the business world. A long-shot for action in an election year, the plan...More >>
Russia said Wednesday the world should not draw "hasty conclusions" over Iran's most recent rebuff of U.N. attempts to investigate allegations the Islamic Republic hid secret work on atomic arms, but the U.S. and its...More >>
Syrian gunners pounded an opposition stronghold where the last dispatches from a veteran American-born war correspondent chronicled the suffering of civilians caught in the relentless shelling. An intense morning barrage...More >>
The parents of an Alabama professor accused of shooting three of her colleagues to death in 2010 say she was a well-adjusted, "family-oriented" girl growing up and didn't deliberately kill her brother in Massachusetts in...More >>
A man who was asked to leave a Korean health spa in an Atlanta suburb earlier in the day came back with a gun and shot two of his sisters and their husbands and then killed himself, police said Wednesday.More >>
President Barack Obama is reaping political benefits from the country's brighter economic mood. A new poll shows that Republicans and Democrats alike are increasingly saying the nation is heading in the right direction...More >>
Washington state cannot force pharmacies to sell Plan B or other emergency contraceptives, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, saying the state's true goal was to suppress religious objections by druggists - not to promote...More >>
Frederick Douglass was black and that was enough for the Smithsonian Institution to bar the famed abolitionist from speaking at a lecture series intended to convince President Abraham Lincoln that he should end slavery as...More >>
The Obama administration declared Alzheimer's "one of the most-feared health conditions" on Wednesday as it issued a draft of the nation's first strategy to fight the ominous rise in the mind-destroying disease.More >>
The trial of a New Hampshire woman charged with lying about her role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide is expected to transport jurors back almost 18 years to a roadblock outside a family owned hotel in Butare where prosecutors...More >>
A juvenile court trial for a boy who was 11 when he was accused of grabbing a shotgun and killing his father's pregnant fiancee and unborn son will remain closed to the public despite appeals by three newspapers, the...More >>
Rick Santorum acknowledged Wednesday that he's probably running behind Mitt Romney in Arizona, but he implored a tea party crowd not to settle for "a Johnny-come-lately to the conservative cause."More >>
An employee of a Wal-Mart Stores Inc. distribution center in Virginia shot and wounded his manager Wednesday, then killed himself as deputies approached him, authorities said.More >>
Two members of a breakaway Mexican drug gang dissolved their victims' corpses in vats of acid in a gruesome display of Mexican cartel tactics played out on U.S. soil, a prosecutor told jurors Wednesday.More >>
Jurors in the murder trial of a former University of Virginia lacrosse player deliberated for hours Wednesday whether he battered his ex-girlfriend to death in a drunken, jealous rage or if his intent to talk with her...More >>
Free speech cases before the Supreme Court often lead justices to consider far-fetched scenarios, and Wednesday's argument over a law making it a crime to lie about having received top military honors was no exception.More >>
Virginia Republican legislators have scrapped a bitterly contested proposal to require women seeking abortions to undergo invasive ultrasound imaging, likely dooming the bill.More >>
The Supreme Court sided with a power company Wednesday in a dispute with Montana over who owns the riverbeds beneath 10 dams sitting on three Montana rivers, although the governor of Montana quickly declared that the state...More >>
An Ohio church is offering a drive-thru Ash Wednesday blessing for parishioners pressed for time or reluctant to come inside the church for the Lenten observance.More >>
The ink wasn't even dry on a settlement with the nation's top mortgage lenders when Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon laid claim to a chunk of the money to avert a huge budget cut for public colleges and universities.More >>
Leaders of a South Dakota American Indian tribe who are suing beer makers, distributors and retailers are now asking a judge to restrict alcohol sales in a tiny Nebraska town that borders their reservation.More >>
Authorities say they've charged a grandmother and stepmother in the death of a 9-year-old Alabama girl who died after being forced to run as punishment.More >>
Methamphetamine lab seizures rose nationally again in 2011, further evidence the powerfully addictive and dangerous drug is maintaining a tight grip on the nation's heartland, according to an Associated Press survey of...More >>
In the field of climate science, when someone - especially skeptics - did something ethically questionable or misrepresented facts, scientist Peter Gleick was usually among the first and loudest to cry foul. He chaired a...More >>
A Michigan man accused of buying and hiding more than 4,000 pounds of explosives with enough potential firepower to equal the Oklahoma City bombing has pleaded guilty to one count, though his attorney insisted Wednesday that...More >>
The bulk of a man's childhood comic book collection that included many of the most prized issues ever published has sold for about $3.5 million.More >>
Texas authorities said Tuesday they removed 11 children from a crowded home where a registered sex offender lives after they found eight confined in a small, dark bedroom with restraints tying some to their beds.More >>
A surging Rick Santorum is making increasingly harsh remarks about President Barack Obama, questioning not just the president's competence but his motives and even his Christian values.More >>
Federal prosecutors investigating the West Virginia coal mine explosion that killed 29 men are working their way up the corporate ladder with criminal charges.More >>
A convicted rapist accused of killing a 16-year-old girl he met online pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder Wednesday, several days after authorities found the girl's body in a blue, plastic barrel in western...More >>
Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell - facing outrage from women, national ridicule from television comedians and appeals from GOP moderates - came out Wednesday against a bill that would require transvaginal ultrasounds for women...More >>
Of all the bank fees that customers love to hate, overdraft charges on checking accounts have to be near the top. The government's new consumer protection agency appears to agree.More >>
A federal grand jury is to hear the case of a British man who's accused of robbing an armored car in England and now faces a federal weapons charge in Missouri.More >>
She was instantly recognizable for the eye patch that hid a shrapnel injury - a testament to Marie Colvin's courage, which took her behind the front lines of the world's deadliest conflicts to write about the...More >>
The Pennsylvania parole board is fighting a judge's recommendation to release an elderly man who remains behind bars nearly two years after his acquittal on murder charges.More >>
The Supreme Court seemed divided Wednesday on whether to allow an Arkansas man to be retried on murder charges even though a jury forewoman said in open court that they were unanimously against finding him guilty.More >>
Environmental and Alaska Native groups will try to keep Shell Oil out of Arctic waters this summer by appealing an air permit that was granted by the Environmental Protection Agency.More >>
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is calling a report of a police surveillance operation targeting Muslims in Newark "disturbing." He also says he doesn't recall ever being briefed about the spying in 2007 while he was the...More >>
Clashes between Afghan troops and protesters angry over the burning of Muslim holy books at a U.S. military base left at least seven people dead and dozens wounded Wednesday as anger spread despite U.S. apologies over what...More >>
Newark Mayor Cory Booker and his top police official say the city was misled by the New York Police Department and never would have authorized such wholesale spying on Muslims if they had known about it.More >>
The Supreme Court has thrown out a federal appeals court ruling allowing patients and health care providers to sue over California's cuts in Medicaid payment rates.More >>
The superintendent of the West Virginia coal mine where an explosion killed 29 men was charged Wednesday with conspiracy to defraud the federal government, becoming the highest-ranking employee to face criminal prosecution...More >>
Divers searching the capsized Costa Concordia cruise ship found eight bodies Wednesday on one of the passenger decks, including that of a missing 5-year-old Italian girl, authorities said.More >>
Netflix's stock dropped 5 percent Wednesday amid worries that the Internet video service's subscriber growth will dwindle and licensing fees will rise now that cable-TV provider Comcast is offering an alternative...More >>
By The Associated Press A comparison of corporate tax proposals by President Barack Obama, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., and GOP presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, Rick...More >>
A Georgia prosecutor told jurors Wednesday that a former attorney for gun manufacturer Glock Inc. was essentially running the company's U.S. operations and used his position to steal millions from his employer.More >>
A British man has been sentenced to probation for helping a former Halliburton Co. subsidiary steer massive bribes to Nigerian officials to win more than $6 billion in construction contracts.More >>
A group of protesters affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement plans to elect 876 "delegates" from around the country and hold a national "general assembly" in Philadelphia over the Fourth of July as part of ongoing...More >>
Federal officials say another 10 states are getting a total of $230 million to set up new health insurance markets under President Barack Obama's overhaul.More >>
By ANN M. JOB For The Associated Press Forget about retro, nostalgia stuff. The 2012 Dodge Charger is an impressive, large, rear-wheel drive sedan for today's buyers who want to stand out from the crowd.More >>
The New York Police Department is facing fresh criticism about its spying on Muslims, this time from the mayor in Newark, where Muslims were put under surveillance and cataloged in NYPD files.More >>
The wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair is suing Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper company over phone hacking, her lawyer said Wednesdsay.More >>
A spokesman for the international military force in Afghanistan says findings from an investigation into the burning of Muslim holy books at a NATO base may come out as early as Wednesday.More >>
The Supreme Court said Wednesday that California police officers cannot be sued because they used a warrant that may have been defective to search a woman's house.More >>
The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Wednesday to authorize an increase in the African Union force in Somalia from 12,000 to about 17,700 and expand its areas of operation in an effort to intensify pressure on...More >>
Authorities in upstate New York are investigating the death of an Amtrak passenger apparently dragged by a train after being kicked off for drunkenness.More >>
Just two dozen ultra-wealthy donors are behind a surge of million-dollar contributions to the new breed of political committees during the presidential campaign.More >>
A North Carolina man recently convicted in a homegrown terrorism plot faces new charges that he attempted to hire a hit man to behead three witnesses who testified against him.More >>
Federal regulators said Tuesday that they've approved new suppliers for two crucial cancer drugs, easing critical shortages - at least for the time being - that have left patients and parents frightened about missing...More >>
President Hugo Chavez has raised serious doubts about whether he'll have the stamina for a successful re-election bid, revealing that he needs to return to Cuba to have a lesion removed that is probably malignant.More >>
Julio Gerena is in a wheelchair, his long career in the U.S. Navy and Army forever behind him. But the 52-year-old recaptured some of the old military camaraderie while peeling potatoes and chopping cilantro in a crowded...More >>
A former police director of New Jersey's largest city says no local officers were used in a spying operation that monitored and catalogued his city's Muslim neighborhoods.More >>
Undaunted by ridicule from the leader of his own party, an Indiana lawmaker is standing by his allegations that the Girl Scouts is a radical organization that promotes abortions and homosexuality.More >>
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is trying to ramp up diplomatic efforts against Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime on a trip to North Africa this week, as some countries begin to explore the possibility of...More >>
By PABLO GORONDI Associated Press Oil prices slipped below $106 a barrel on Wednesday as concerns about the debt crisis in Europe were countered by the threat of conflicts over Iran's nuclear program...More >>
Attorneys for country duo Sugarland said concertgoers were at least partly to blame for injuries suffered in a stage collapse, drawing a sharp reaction from fans Tuesday and prompting the band's manager to issue a...More >>
Jury deliberations are under way in the trial of a former University of Virginia lacrosse player charged in the slaying of his former girlfriend in a drunken rage.More >>
A substitute teacher in the nation's second-largest school district was investigated three times for sexual misconduct with students before he quit in 2007 to work for a neighboring district.More >>
The U.S. and North Korea reopen nuclear talks Thursday that will provide a glimpse into where Pyongyang's opaque government is heading after Kim Jong Il's death and test its readiness to dismantle nuclear programs...More >>
Americans living and working in New Jersey's largest city were subjected to surveillance as part of the New York Police Department's effort to build databases of where Muslims work, shop and pray. The operation in...More >>
Police say a 5-year-old boy in Ohio brought an unloaded handgun to the day care he attends after finding it in the grass at his apartment complex.More >>
A New York City jury has awarded a former Playboy playmate $1.2 million for injuries she suffered during a 2006 scuffle with police based on a taxi driver's false accusation that she was armed and dangerous.More >>
Officers on horseback cleared Bourbon Street early Wednesday, declaring an end to Carnival 2012 in New Orleans as Mardi Gras revelers began to prepare for the beginning of Lent, the period of fasting and repentance before...More >>
President Barack Obama is proposing to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent and wants an even lower effective rate for manufacturers, a senior administration official says, as the White House lays down an...More >>
Police were interviewing witnesses at a spa outside Atlanta where a gunman opened fire, killing five people in what authorities described as a murder-suicide.More >>
The U.N. nuclear agency acknowledged renewed failure Wednesday after a trip to probe suspicions of covert Iranian nuclear weapons work, in a statement issued just hours after an Iranian general warned of a pre-emptive strike...More >>
Leaving nothing to chance, the U.S. military is making sure the transfer of 17 tons of shipwreck treasure to Spain later this week is handled safely.More >>
By AMY TAXIN and ELLIOT SPAGAT Associated Press Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Perry Woo earned praise for his courage and quick thinking after he fatally shot a colleague who opened fire on a...More >>
Readily available, easy-to-use software can encrypt a computer hard drive so thoroughly it would take years for a hacker to break in. But that seems to be no impediment for government prosecutors, who have obtained an order...More >>
California health officials became alarmed when a 39-year-old Mexican-American woman in Alameda County was diagnosed with mercury poisoning, giving her headaches, numbness, depression and forgetfulness.More >>
Same-sex couples in California will have to wait a while to find out if they have regained the right to get married, after the backers of the state's gay marriage ban petitioned a federal appeals court to review a split...More >>
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush sidestepped talk of presidential campaign politics to focus on business issues Tuesday during a speech at the Kansas Chamber of Commerce's annual dinner.More >>
The president just couldn't say no: Mick Jagger held out a microphone almost by way of command, and soon Barack Obama was belting out the blues with the best of them.More >>
Attorneys for the suspect in the Tucson shooting that wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords are objecting to prosecutors' receiving a prison psychologist's personal notes on their client.More >>
An Ohio woman who compared animal-welfare work to the liberation of World War II concentration camps has been charged with soliciting a hit man to fatally shoot or slit the throat of a random fur-wearer, federal authorities...More >>
By The Associated Press Yale President Richard Levin condemned the New York Police Department's monitoring of Muslim student associations in a letter on Monday:More >>
Same-sex marriage was on hold in California after opponents petitioned a federal appeals court Tuesday to review a split decision by three of its judges that struck down a voter-approved measure that limited marriage to a...More >>
Three Texas men whom federal officials say were linked to a gun used in a U.S. agent's death in Mexico were sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty to weapons charges.More >>
By AMY TAXIN and ELLIOT SPAGAT Associated Press The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent believed to have fatally shot a colleague who opened fire on a supervisor has won acclaim for investigating sex...More >>
A California police department had no intent to deceive the public by releasing an old booking photo of a homeless man who died after a confrontation with officers or information about officers' potential injuries from...More >>
A state administrative judge has ordered the revocation of a Kansas doctor's license over her referrals of young patients to the late Dr. George Tiller for late-term abortions, concluding their care was "seriously...More >>
A woman shopping on a busy downtown El Paso street became the first victim of bullets flying across the border from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Tuesday when she was hit in the calf and wounded, authorities said.More >>
The mother of a former U.S. Marine sentenced to death in Iran on a spying conviction has visited her son in an Iranian prison, a spokesman for the Michigan family said Tuesday.More >>
A Nebraska city's attempt to fight illegal immigration with a newly court-approved ordinance appears likely to be more of an inconvenience for legal residents than a deterrent to illegal immigrants.More >>
A phone scam in which callers in India posed as debt collectors bilked millions of dollars out of more than 10,000 U.S. residents by using threats of arrest or the loss of their jobs, U.S. authorities said Tuesday in what...More >>
An embattled Arizona sheriff said Tuesday that the state's top prosecutor has agreed to conduct a comprehensive independent investigation into allegations made against him and his office.More >>
The family of Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Shadid will hold a memorial service for the late journalist next month in his hometown of Oklahoma City.More >>
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Tuesday that President Barack Obama's administration has "fought against religion" and sought to substitute a "secular" agenda for one grounded in faith.More >>
A global coalition against censorship is needed to protect online journalists and bloggers who are being targeted by repressive governments, a leading advocacy group said Tuesday.More >>
Former Indiana U.S. Rep. Katie Hall, a key sponsor of the 1983 legislation that established a national holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., has died. She was 73.More >>
The mayor faced off with the president of Yale University on Tuesday over an effort by the city's police department to monitor Muslim student groups for any signs that their members harbored terrorist sympathies.More >>
Prosecutors urged jurors Tuesday to dismiss a murder defendant's assertions that an angel who looked like Olivia Newton-John ordered him to fatally shoot a co-worker's husband outside a preschool. They say Hemy...More >>
The reintroduction of Mexican gray wolves to a mountain range just south of the U.S.-Mexico border as part of an effort to re-establish the endangered species is off to a rocky start.More >>
A California woman was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after police say she drove the getaway car for her teenage son who allegedly stabbed a boy.More >>
The Fiesta Bowl's former top executive pleaded guilty Tuesday to a felony charge stemming from a political donations scandal that nearly jeopardized the bowl's role as a regular host of college football's...More >>
Portuguese workers issued a spontaneous "Ja chega!" - "That's enough!" - to the government, rejecting its appeal to stay at their jobs during Carnival, one of their most beloved holidays.More >>
She has been dubbed the "trailer park Mata Hari," an attractive ex-stripper recruited by the feds to befriend identical twin brothers accused of a white-supremacist bombing and to get them to admit to the crime.More >>
A federal judge is postponing a decision on Utah's immigration enforcement law until after the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a similar law in Arizona.More >>
A man charged with murdering his wife by drowning her during a 2003 honeymoon diving trip in Australia said he was done grieving her death by the time her funeral was being planned back home in Alabama, the woman's...More >>
The U.N. agency that fights drugs and crime estimated that cocaine trafficking is generating some $900 million annually in West and Central Africa as South American cartels use the shortest route to transport drugs to Europe.More >>
A construction crane collapsed and killed two workers because its money-hungry owner skimped on a vital repair job, prosecutors said Tuesday as the owner went on trial in a manslaughter case that his lawyers said...More >>
Some Southern Baptists worry that their denomination's name still carries the stigma of a 19th century split with northern Baptists over slavery. Others who fought hard to build the brand and its conservative theology...More >>
The city cannot go forward with a new policy requiring single people to prove they have no other options before they enter homeless shelters, a court ruled Tuesday.More >>
Top Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials debated the accuracy of public statements made by the agency's chairman about a pool holding spent fuel rods at a crippled Japan nuclear plant, newly released transcripts show.More >>
Fitzpatrick Manufacturing Co. is a high-tech job shop, crafting super-precise parts for machines used in everything from robotics to aerospace to oil exploration. Macomb Community College lies a few miles down the road in...More >>
Archer Daniels Midland Co. said Tuesday that it is firing 175 people at its headquarters in Illinois as part of a plan to cut what it now says will be 1,200 mostly salaried jobs across the company.More >>
A former teacher whose arrest sparked a scandal at an elementary school that led to the replacement of all of its teachers pleaded not guilty Tuesday to committing lewd acts with 23 children in his classroom.More >>
Before the death of Don Cornelius stirred pangs of "Soul Train" nostalgia in the American public, a group of black entrepreneurs already had begun working to revive Cornelius' creation and carry it beyond the continued...More >>
Sophisticated encryption software has become so readily available and so effective, it's surpassed the federal government's ability to seize computers and gather evidence in criminal cases.More >>
Federal labor officials say they found nine workplace violations at a candy repackaging and distribution facility owned by The Hershey Co. and operated by Exel Inc. where foreign student workers protested last summer.More >>
Federal labor officials announced Tuesday they found nine workplace violations at a candy repackaging and distribution facility owned by The Hershey Co. and operated by Exel Inc., the site of protests last summer by foreign...More >>
In an embarrassing setback, the Justice Department gave up Tuesday on its high-profile prosecution of nearly two dozen businessmen charged in the first undercover sting the government used to enforce a 35-year-old law...More >>