Today is Saturday, July 4, the 185th day of 2009. There are 180 days left in the year. This is Independence Day.Today's Highlight in History:On July 4, 1776, ...

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin abruptly announced Friday she is resigning from office at the end of the month, a shocking move that rattled the Republican party but left open the ...

The mayor of Detroit is firing the city's police chief, a person familiar with the situation said Friday.The person told the Associated Press that Mayor Dave Bing ha...

A shuttered mill in northwestern South Carolina has caught fire, spewing clouds of dense, black smoke visible for miles.The mill housing the former Rock Hill Printin...

Malt-O-Meal Co. is voluntarily recalling oatmeal that contains instant nonfat dry milk that may be contaminated with salmonella.The instant nonfat dry milk came from...

Like an old Western boomtown, the makeshift village that sprang up around the gates of Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch was vanishing Friday, with visitors and vendors pac...

As of Friday, July 3, 2009, at least 642 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in la...

As of Friday, July 3, 2009, at least 4,322 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.USCG: 4 Mich. fishermen found safe on Lake Erie

Four Michigan fishermen whose 19-foot boat capsized in western Lake Erie have been rescued.U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Brandon Blackwell says Monroe County marine...

When it comes to trains, there's fast and then there's really, really fast.Advocates on Tuesday unveiled an $11.5 billion plan for a Chicago-St. Louis high-speed lin...

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin abruptly announced Friday she is resigning from office at the end of the month, a shocking move that rattled the Republican party but left open the ...

_ December 2006 — Gov. Sarah Palin, a former mayor of Wasilla City, Alaska, becomes governor of her state after defeating an incumbent governor of her own party in the pr...

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says she will resign from office July 26; doesn't announce plansWASILLA, Alaska (AP) — Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin made a surprise announcement...

Los Angeles city officials are preparing for massive crowds downtown during Tuesday's public memorial for Michael Jackson at Staples Center, even though only 17,500 tickets...

Galveston officials are investigating the torching of 30 palm trees in the last two months."What we've got on our hands, a serial tree arsonist, I've never seen befo...

A federal appeals court will not reconsider its ruling that overturned a murder conviction.In a decision announced Thursday, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sa...

In the fight of pachyderms vs. people — the pachyderms now have the upper trunk.Three circus elephants scored a decisive victory over three human competitive eater...

Terrified residents canceled Fourth of July plans and holed up in their homes Friday as investigators hunted a serial killer believed to have shot four people to death....

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said Friday she is resigning from office at the end of the month, raising speculation that she would focus on a run for the White House in the 2012 ...

After a week that offered the world a glimpse into the conflicted mind of philandering South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford, his constituents differed Friday on whether he shou...

Norman Welton, whose 31-year career as a photo editor for The Associated Press included coverage of New York City, the United Nations and four Olympic Games, has died. He w...

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIAFriday:Michael Jackson: Josh dickey and Frank Baker are off, but monitoring and on cell. Jesse Washington is your first contact; he and Joh...

Casket makers catering to natural burials have offered biodegradable coffins made of such materials as recycled newspapers or cardboard. Ecoffins USA, based in Montrose, Co...

A collection of letters by one of baseball's founding fathers has been pulled from auction while authorities look into whether the trove contains documents that vanished fr...

A man charged with shooting a prominent Kansas doctor who performed late-term abortions has been advocating through mailings from his jail cell that such killings are justi...

Eighty-two-year-old identical twin sisters were found dead in their San Antonio home after the city sweltered through days of 100-degree heat.The bodies of Florence ...

As the unemployment rate climbs, some job seekers are looking for help at church.Church-related unemployment support groups have formed all over the country as the j...

Colin Daymude was out of work last year after his business failed and eagerly filed his taxes in mid-January, figuring he'd get his refund sooner. He was wrong.It to...

Sheriff's deputies searched Friday for a serial killer blamed for four deaths over the past six days as terrified residents wondered who might be next.Investigators ...

A Texas woman will serve at least nine years in prison for drowning her 3-month-old granddaughter in what the defense said was a misguided effort to teach the infant to swi...

Moneeb Hassan remembers having to choose between a final exam in American history or celebrating the Muslim holy day of Eid al-Adha. In the end, he chose both.Hassan...

The powerful sedative Diprivan was found in Michael Jackson's home, a law enforcement official said Friday as the city planned for a massive crowd at the singer's memorial ...

Ed Spaeth was researching his family tree when he discovered an 18th-century ancestor likely was buried in the woods just down the hill from his Hudson Valley home.A...

References to television pitchman Bill Mays' trademark image were everywhere at his funeral Friday near Pittsburgh.Most mourners wore stickers showing a cartoon imag...

Somewhere among the beakers and the bubbling green-tinged tanks in this Utah State University lab, Jeff Muhs is searching for champion pond scum for Uncle Sam.If he ...

The U.S. Coast Guard and others are searching Lake Erie for four Michigan fishermen whose 19-foot boat set sail a day earlier.The men, who are between 52 and 76 year...

Television product pitchman Billy Mays is being remembered as a pop culture icon.Mays' funeral was Friday in McKees Rocks, Pa., a small suburb of Pittsburgh where he...

Authorities say a transformer failure caused a Staten Island ferry to lose power and slam into a New York City pier earlier this week.Staten Island ferry Chief Opera...

A Philadelphia man faces up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to boarding a US Airways flight while carrying a concealed weapon.Twenty-nine-year-old Damien...

A Missouri mother said she never should have been prosecuted for her role in a MySpace hoax directed at a 13-year-old girl who ended up committing suicide.A federal ...

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has left his official residence in the state capital and appears to be heading to spend the weekend with his wife and children.Sanfo...

City officials are scrambling over the holiday weekend to try to figure out how to accommodate a public memorial service for Michael Jackson at a venue that can hold no mor...

Corey Carter could hear snippets of music in his head — a calm and subtle melody that hadn't found its shape. The 19-year-old college student simply needed a hero to visu...

Several states are facing the prospect of government shutdowns and program cuts as they enter the first weekend of the fiscal year and July Fourth holiday without a budget ...

Federal agents busted a drug-trafficking ring that distributed methamphetamine and cocaine from Mexico in Washington state and carried unusually powerful weaponry, injectin...

Strong thunderstorms were expected Friday across the Northern Plains as a weak area of low pressure in the upper atmosphere slides down the eastern slopes of the Rockies. A...

A federal judge in San Francisco said a lawsuit seeking to overturn California's same-sex marriage ban will likely one day reach the U.S. Supreme Court.U.S. District...

A federal judge has tentatively thrown out the convictions of a Missouri mother for her role in a MySpace hoax directed at a 13-year-old neighbor girl who ended up committi...

The National Society of Newspaper Columnists chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as the winner of its annual Sitting Duck Award, a tongue-in-cheek honor that pokes fun at the mos...

Business consultant Katrina Kennedy has taken her young son out of preschool and put a family vacation on hold. Dairyman Mike O'Kelly is wondering whether he is going to ha...

The clogged tourist travel route between Southern California and Las Vegas has been designated a federal high-speed rail corridor, in a move that officials hope would signa...

Authorities say a programming error on cell phone towers misrouted 911 calls from a lost hiker who died in a rescue helicopter crash last month, but the problem has been co...

The question of when and where a public memorial service will be held for Michael Jackson has finally been answered. But how city officials will handle the likelihood of a ...

South Carolina first lady Jenny Sanford says her husband's affair with an Argentine woman broke a trust that he must earn back — first from his family, then his constitue...

An across-the-board drop in tax collections, coupled with a prolonged recession, has states facing their worst fiscal crisis in decades.Several states are entering t...

A Hawaii judge has blocked Gov. Linda Lingle from forcing thousands of public employees to take three unpaid days off per month, dealing her a setback in efforts to tame a ...

An Oregon woman obsessed with bunnies has been ordered back behind bars after police found her in a hotel room with more than a dozen rabbits.Washington County Circu...

"I think that it's important that even as we move forward with President Medvedev that Putin understand that the old Cold War approaches to U.S.-Russian relations is outdat...

Police in suburban Chicago say a taxi driver who didn't have Mace handy when he was attacked by a knife-wielding passenger instead disarmed the man with a can of aerosol de...

Herbert G. Klein, Richard Nixon's ex-White House director of communications and a former editor for Copley Newspapers, has died. He was 91.Klein died Thursday after ...

A Northern California elementary school teacher sent her students home for the summer with a video of class memories, only the DVD included six seconds of her having sex on...

The clogged tourist travel route between Southern California and Las Vegas has been designated a federal high-speed rail corridor, in a move that officials hope would signa...

A New York Police Department rookie just couldn't wait to get started.One of the NYPD's newest officers made his first arrest Thursday just minutes after graduating ...

A former surgery technician may have exposed thousands of Colorado patients to hepatitis C when she swapped her own dirty syringes for ones filled with a powerful narcotic,...

Police in suburban Chicago say a taxi driver who didn't have Mace handy when he was attacked by a knife-wielding passenger instead disarmed the man with a can of aerosol de...