Today is Thursday, April 29, the 119th day of 2010. There are 246 days left in the year.Today's Highlight in History:On April 29, 1945, during World Wa...

More than 100 suspects are facing charges since police in Fresno, Calif., started a crackdown on gangs this week.After three people were killed in separate shootings...

A new oil leak was discovered at the site in the Gulf of Mexico where a drilling rig exploded and sank, and experts now estimate that five times more has been spilling into...

A Latino clergy group says it will file the first lawsuit challenging Arizona's tough new law targeting illegal immigration.The National Coalition of Latino Clergy a...

A Washington state man accused of drowning his 3-year-old stepdaughter so he could collect on a $200,000 life insurance policy has been convicted of second-degree murder.Prosecutors seek to dismiss whale sushi charges

Federal prosecutors have moved to dismiss charges against a Southern California sushi restaurant that admitted serving illegal and endangered whale meat, though the case ap...

Prosecutors won't seek the death penalty in the case of a man accused of raping two women and fatally stabbing one of them in their Seattle home.King County prosecut...

The Coast Guard says a new leak has been found at the site where an oil platform exploded and sank in the Gulf of Mexico.Rear Adm. Mary Landry says that 5,000 barrel...

Police say a 12-year-old Southern California boy is dead after he apparently asphyxiated himself for thrills in the so-called "choking game."The Santa Monica Police ...

Illinois lawmaker Deborah Mell is sharing some bittersweet news with her colleagues.The sweet is that she's engaged. The bitter is that Illinois doesn't recognize ga...

Creditors won the frenzied bankruptcy auction for Philadelphia's two major newspapers with a $139 million bid on Wednesday, despite last-minute pledges from area philanthro...

Security was heightened as William Ayers delivered a speech on education reform at the University of Wyoming on Wednesday, but only a handful of demonstrators showed up to ...

An Atlantic City, N.J., restaurateur whose holdout against a Donald Trump casino expansion was depicted in the comic strip "Doonesbury" has died.The Jeffries & K...

An Ohio man who left an infant and a toddler in a plastic trash bin on a hot July day has been sentenced to 17 years in prison.Thirty-nine-year-old Tommie Johnson Jr...

A former executive of a kosher Iowa slaughterhouse who was convicted of financial fraud knew illegal immigrants worked at the plant, an admission that directly contradicts ...

A man accused of shooting and wounding two Colorado eighth-graders just after the school day ended said he woke up feeling angry, violent and "transformed upon" before he w...

A coalition of wealthy foundations is offering up to half a billion dollars to match federal grants meant to encourage education reform, taking the pressure off schools scr...

President Barack Obama said Wednesday that there "may not be an appetite" in Congress to deal with immigration immediately after going through a tough legislative year....

An attorney says she saw police fatally shoot a Southern California robbery suspect whose hands were in the air.Lawyer Frances Prizzia said Wednesday she had an unob...

A federal judge challenged prosecutors Wednesday to show that nine members of a Michigan militia accused of plotting war against the government had done more than just talk...

Authorities in North Carolina on Wednesday arrested a soldier who is accused with three other men of assaulting a homeless man in Ohio just because they wanted to beat some...

A baby gorilla who was injured in a skirmish with older members of her family group at the Louisville Zoo is getting better as keepers care for her continuously outside the...

President Barack Obama said Wednesday that there "may not be an appetite" in Congress to deal with immigration immediately after going through a tough legislative year....

President Barack Obama says the regulatory package he wants to see become law would allow financial institutions to make money the old-fashioned way — lending to companie...

The requirements of Oklahoma's new abortion law are drawing some emotional responses from patients, a clinic director said Wednesday, now that women must have an ultrasound...

The Connecticut Senate has approved a bill allowing police officers to seek workers' compensation for stress after using deadly force on mammals.The bill stems from ...

A New York-based beverage company finds itself in the middle of the controversy over an Arizona immigration law simply because it shares its name with the state.An i...

Three associates of Seattle strip club boss Frank Colacurcio Sr. pleaded guilty Wednesday to racketeering and prostitution charges as part of a deal that will result in fou...

The Roman Catholic bishop of Providence has withdrawn two hospitals sponsored by his diocese from membership in a Catholic hospital group that supports health care reform.<...

A federal judge challenged prosecutors Wednesday to show that nine members of a Michigan militia accused of plotting war against the government had done more than just talk...

Palm Inc. a pioneer in the smart phone business that couldn't quite make the comeback it needed, has agreed to be bought out by Hewlett-Packard Co. for about $1.4 billion i...

A woman was trying to figure out what to do after a demolition crew wrongly tore down most of her house, instead of one across the street. Francis Howard told the Denton Re...

Prosecutors in a Utah city will file negligent homicide charges against an exterminator who applied rodent poison that was later linked to the death of two young girls....

Three associates of Seattle strip club boss Frank Colacurcio Sr. pleaded guilty Wednesday to racketeering and prostitution charges as part of a deal that will result in not...

Big Jake might be taller than any other horse in the world, but his owner Jerry Gilbert describes him as a gentle giant.The 9-year-old Belgian gelding is the Guinnes...

Florida International University officials say one of their researchers was bitten in the elbow while measuring sharks for research on their ecological impact in the coasta...

About a dozen relatives and friends gathered Wednesday at a funeral home in Brooklyn to honor a Good Samaritan who was shown on video footage as passers-by ignored him whil...

Coast Guard officials say they have yet to see a noticeable change in migration trends from Haiti following January's devastating earthquake.The commandant of the Co...

A Roman Catholic bishop in Rhode Island has withdrawn two hospitals sponsored by his diocese from membership in a Catholic hospital group that supports health care reform.<...

A referendum drive launched Wednesday could put Arizona's tough new law targeting illegal immigration on hold until 2012 if organizers wait until the last minute to turn in...

It's a hellish scene: Giant sheets of flame racing across the Gulf of Mexico as thick, black smoke billows high into the sky.This, though, is no Hollywood action mov...

Many of the cars that once stopped in the Home Depot parking lot to pick up day laborers to hang drywall or do landscaping now just drive on by.Arizona's sweeping im...

A coalition of wealthy foundations is offering more than half a billion dollars to match federal grants meant to encourage education reform, taking the pressure off schools...

A jury has recommended the death penalty for a Southern California man convicted of torturing and killing a 16-year-old runaway girl.Jurors in Riverside deliberated ...

A retired minister from Diamond, Mo., may have been destined to find a diamond at the Crater of Diamonds State Park. But Mack Evans said the 4.89-carat rock he discovered r...

A fourth former New Orleans police officer has pleaded guilty to helping cover up deadly police shootings of unarmed residents after Hurricane Katrina.Robert Barrios...

A referendum could put Arizona's tough new law targeting illegal immigration on hold until 2012 if organizers can gather the more than 76,000 signatures needed to get the m...

With full control of the Oklahoma Legislature for the first time, Republicans have been flexing their political muscles, passing laws they know will face court challenges, ...

President Barack Obama hailed a Senate breakthrough on legislation to regulate Wall Street, saying Americans must never again allow the financial practices that triggered a...

A soldier in North Carolina accused with three other men of beating a homeless man in Cincinnati has been arrested.Officials at Fort Bragg in North Carolina said Wed...

A federal jury in Knoxville has ended a second day without a verdict in the felony case against a man accused of hacking the e-mail of Sarah Palin.The jury deliberat...

Toxic gases are still keeping investigators out of the West Virginia coal mine more than three weeks since 29 men died in an explosion.Federal officials said Wednesd...

Military prosecutors sent a notice Wednesday indicating they plan to seek the death penalty against the Army psychiatrist charged in the deadly shooting rampage at Fort Hoo...

Burglars who stole a big-screen television from a Medford store dropped it on the sidewalk and went back for a smaller one before disappearing into the night. The Mail Trib...

Police said they arrested a 66-year-old woman accused of firing a gun into the air to break up her neighbors' backyard party. The woman was booked into the Benton County ja...

A 17-year-old Utah boy mowing the lawn at his home in Hooper ran into a canister of TNT that may date back as far as World War II. Taylor Wood was mowing the pasture behind...

A diminutive horse born in New Hampshire could lay claim to the world record for lightweight foal. The pinto stallion named Einstein weighed just 6 pounds and measured 14 i...

A man who concealed his face by wrapping his head with toilet paper robbed a Lincoln convenience store. Police said the man was armed with a knife when he robbed the store ...

A man has a pretty good excuse for why he crashed his car into a utility pole in Winona: his dog puked on him. The Winona Daily News reported police found the car unattende...

A sex offender who infected at least 13 women with the AIDS virus should be locked up indefinitely under a civil law meant to keep the most dangerous offenders out of commu...

A dying Oregon comedian's last words will be written on his cremation urns — and the message will be sponsored by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.The a...

President Barack Obama says he's pleased that Senate Republicans are agreeing to allow debate on a financial overhaul bill after days of stalling tactics.Obama told ...

The wife of an unemployed Georgia doctor charged with fatally shooting a Yale University physician says she is "in shock and despair" about the killing.Lan Ma releas...

One of 11 suspected Somali pirates entered a not guilty plea Wednesday on U.S. charges related to attacks on two Navy ships off the coast of Africa.Attorneys for 10 ...

Prosecutors in Denver have formally filed charges against a man suspected of mangling a shopper's finger while stealing an iPad.The Denver district attorney's office...

John Edwards' mistress said the former presidential candidate's wife didn't know about their involvement until after he gave an interview to ABC News correspondent Bob Wood...

People with a common, obesity-related liver disease that has no known treatment got a surprising benefit from vitamin E pills, researchers reported Wednesday.It appe...

A former Vermont lawman who became so addicted to prescription drugs that he used underlings to illegally acquire them was sentenced Wednesday to six months in prison.<...

A Rhode Island teachers union has sued a troubled school district that fired all its high school teachers and staff.The union is challenging a requirement that all f...

The pope's hand-picked replacement to oversee abuse cases at the Vatican did nothing to restrict a California priest after learning in 1995 that the priest had molested a 1...

Police searched Wednesday for a Texas man authorities say used two chain saws to decapitate his wife before leaving her body in the street near their suburban Dallas home.<...

Stephen Hawking may think it's too risky to try to talk to space aliens. But NASA and plenty of other groups have been trying to communicate with other worlds for years.Trainer nose-to-nose with whale before she died, Mike Schneider

A SeaWorld Orlando trainer managed to free herself for a short time and tried to swim to the surface after she was dragged underwater by a killer whale, but the animal thwa...

A slain college student's parents bared their grief Wednesday to the embittered boyfriend who killed her, saying she invested love and compassion in a man bent on controlli...

Investors gave stocks a rebound after reassuring words from the Federal Reserve and another batch of upbeat earnings reports.The Dow Jones industrials rose 53 points...

The 71-year-old father of a Michigan militia leader charged with plotting against the government testified Wednesday that he would keep an eye on his son if he was released...

A former barber was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison for murdering a mentally ill homeless man by splashing him with gasoline and setting him ablaze to settle a grudge...

A soldier in Kentucky accused with three other men of beating a homeless man in Cincinnati will head to Ohio to face a felonious assault charge.Twenty-four-year-old ...

Federal officials are launching a national advertising campaign aimed at curbing methamphetamine use in American Indian communities.The director of the White House O...

Police say a 24-year-old man is missing a chunk of his right ear that was bitten off by a woman who didn't like being called "fat." Police spokeswoman Katie Flood said offi...

A man is battling the Ohio Statehouse over the right to bare feet. Bob Neinast said his feet hurt when he wears shoes, so he goes barefoot nearly everywhere, even in winter...

With enrollment surging at community colleges, Anne Arundel Community College is taking a novel approach: midnight classes. The college will offer a psychology class from m...

A former truck driver who spent nearly 19 years behind bars for a 1988 slaying he didn't commit walked free Wednesday after DNA testing exonerated him and instead pointed t...

The federal government would become the owner of four notorious Seattle-area strip clubs under plea agreements being filed Wednesday.Under the deals, three business ...

President Barack Obama on Wednesday pleaded for commonsense financial reforms to prevent some of the risky Wall Street behavior that contributed to the economic near-meltdo...

A New Hampshire college has settled a lawsuit accusing its former director of its poetry master's degree program of stealing faculty and recreating the program at a rival N...

Federal authorities have indicted two former risk management officers and two vendors for Detroit's public schools on bribery, fraud, extortion and money-laundering charges...

A former Vermont police chief who abruptly fell from grace after a fender-bender helped expose his drug problem has been sentenced to six months in jail.Michael Lowe...

A slain college student's father says he can't forgive the embittered boyfriend who killed her. But he's challenging the younger man to contribute to society when he gets o...

Corporate America is back.Companies that do everything from making appliances to selling cruises are reporting strong first-quarter profits — not because of the la...

Evelyn Cunningham, a pioneering journalist who covered the birth of the 1960s civil rights movement and later served as an aide to New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, died We...

A former executive of a kosher Iowa slaughterhouse who was convicted of financial fraud knew illegal immigrants worked at the plant, an admission that directly contradicts ...

The Massachusetts police sergeant whose arrest of a Harvard professor created a national debate over racial profiling has been invited to lead a Rhode Island parade....

Most Americans are paying about $3 a gallon for gas. The residents of McGrath, Alaska, saw their gas prices jump by that amount in one night. The price at the only pump in ...

A Connecticut woman who had a voluntary double mastectomy after genetic testing is alleging her employer eliminated her job after learning she carried a gene implicated in ...

Attorneys for a Utah inmate scheduled to be killed by firing squad have asked a judge to put the execution on hold while they appeal.Ronnie Lee Gardner is scheduled ...

Anchorage police raids on homeless camps in which tents, sleeping bags and other personal belongings were seized and destroyed were unconstitutional, the American Civil Lib...

A former Air Force intelligence specialist showed signs of paranoia aboard a trans-Atlantic flight and told federal air marshals that he had dynamite in his boots and lapto...

The National Weather Service has confirmed that a single monster tornado is to blame for 10 deaths over the weekend in Mississippi.It was initially unclear if a sing...

The U.S. areas with the best and worst air quality, according to the latest American Lung Association "State of the Air" pollution report:OZONE POLLUTIONWORST...

At least three Arizona cities are considering a lawsuit to block the new immigration enforcement law.The cities include Phoenix, Tucson and Flagstaff. Their possible...

A Continental Express flight from Houston to the Washington area was diverted to North Carolina on Wednesday after a threatening message was written on a bathroom mirror, t...

A homeless Good Samaritan who was ignored while lying, mortally wounded, on a New York City sidewalk will be honored at a wake.The family of Guatemalan immigrant Hug...

A federal magistrate says a former surgeon who was arrested in Italy after five years on the run and extradited to Indiana to face health care fraud charges is mentally com...

New Jersey's highest court has agreed to hear the case of a tea party group seeking to recall one of the state's U.S. senators.Lawyers for Sen. Robert Menendez petit...

A judge in Los Angeles has sentenced a former barber to life in prison for killing a mentally ill homeless man by splashing him with gasoline and setting him ablaze with a ...

The FBI says an airline passenger who caused a jetliner to be diverted to Maine claimed he had dynamite in his boots and in his laptop computer.An affidavit filed in...

Police say five people from the greater Atlanta area are being held without bond after an officer who stopped a car found two explosive devices filled with shrapnel....

Floors cracked and walls collapsed in Christine Jennifer Delma's Port-au-Prince school when the catastrophic earthquake struck in January.Outside, the frightened 10-...

Scientists have found lots of life-essential water — frozen as ice — in an unexpected place in our solar system: an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter.The discove...

California geology officials have released an updated state seismic activity map that they hope will improve earthquake preparedness and construction decisions.The m...

Husbands, if you end up in the doghouse, consider it a promotion.A third of pet-owning married women said their pets are better listeners than their husbands, accord...

A whole new way of generating electricity in the U.S. drew a big step closer to reality Wednesday, and it could look like this: 130 windmills, 440 feet tall, rising from th...

Crews geared up to set fire to oil leaking from the site of an exploded drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, a last-ditch effort to get rid of it before it reac...

Security was heightened Wednesday at the University of Wyoming as the school prepared for a speech from William Ayers, the 1960s radical whose visit was blocked before a fe...

2010 BMW 750i xDriveBASE PRICE: $82,000 for rear-drive sedan; $85,000 for all-wheel drive sedan.AS TESTED: $99,825.TYPE: Front-engine, all-wheel drive,...

Bumper to bumper, the BMW 7-Series cars are as long as sport utility vehicles. They weigh as much as SUVs, too.But despite starting retail prices over $80,000 and di...

Six in 10 Americans — about 175 million people — are living in places where air pollution often reaches dangerous levels, despite progress in reducing particle pollutio...

Attorneys for a Utah inmate scheduled to be killed by firing squad have asked a judge to put the execution on hold.Third District Judge Robin Reese signed the warran...

Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad:April 28:The Portland (Maine) Press Herald, on the U.S. Supreme Court's d...

The Michigan Court of Appeals has upheld the first-degree murder verdict of a man convicted of sexually assaulting and killing a student in her Eastern Michigan University ...

The Mormon church — which begins a new construction project every week — is looking to lessen its imprint on the environment.Church officials debuted a pilot bui...

The Obama administration has approved what would be the nation's first offshore wind farm, off Cape Cod, two government officials briefed on the decision confirmed Wednesda...

A 23-year-old man with a gun arrested in North Carolina after allegedly saying he wanted to see the president was cited in 2006 for illegal use of emergency lights.J...

Relatives of a New York man who recently completed a 12-year prison sentence for knowingly infecting at least 13 women with the AIDS virus say there's no reason the state s...

Coast Guard: Military offers to help BP contain oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico....

The Coast Guard planned to set fire to oil leaking from the site of an exploded drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, a last-ditch effort to get rid of it before...

A rare late-season snowstorm dumped up to 2 feet of heavy, wet snow on northern New York and northern New England on Wednesday, giving school children an unexpected day off...

Police are searching for a suburban Dallas man accused of decapitating his wife with a chainsaw.Lewisville police have issued an arrest warrant for 49-year-old Jose ...

A county health department in Ohio has closed because of a hygiene issue under its own roof: an infestation of fleas.Officials with the Fairfield County Department o...

An organization that uses DNA evidence to clear people wrongfully convicted of crimes says prosecutors will ask a New York judge to free a man imprisoned for killing a woma...

The National Zoo says its female giant panda is not pregnant after all.The zoo says a final ultrasound and hormone analysis Tuesday confirmed Mei Xiang (may-SHONG) w...

Racing against a threat to environmentally sensitive marshlands, authorities planned to begin Wednesday burning some of the thickest oil from a rig explosion off the coast ...

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar is headed to Boston to announce his decision on the fate of what would be the nation's first offshore wind farm, off of Cape Cod....

Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas is giving money received from Goldman Sachs' political action committee for her re-election bid to charity as the investment bank faces fed...

A federal jury has begun deliberating for a second day in the trial of a former Tennessee college student accused of hacking Sarah Palin's e-mail account when she was a vic...

A former kosher slaughterhouse manager who was convicted of financial fraud not only cheated a bank out of $26 million, prosecutors claim, he also knowingly employed illega...

A Massachusetts man charged with murder for stabbing to death a woman sheltering his girlfriend and their four children has been convicted of the lesser charge of voluntary...

Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge says he's uncomfortable with Arizona's new immigration law, saying it allows police to question people without probable cause.<...

A Texas lawmaker says she plans to push for a law similar to Arizona's get-tough immigration measure.San Antonio Express-News and Houston Chronicle report Wednesday ...

President Barack Obama is telling voters in the Midwest that unless lawmakers tighten controls on Wall Street, there's no guarantee another economic crisis won't hammer the...

Marines in North Carolina have scheduled an exercise that mirrors a shooting rampage last year at the Army's Fort Hood in Texas in which 13 people were killed.The ex...

Husbands, if you end up in the doghouse, consider it a promotion.A third of pet-owning married women said their pets are better listeners than their husbands, accord...

U.S. stock futures are falling slightly as European debt problems continue to overshadow signs of an improving economy and the Federal Reserve Board's latest meeting.Jurors in Palin hacking to deliberate for 2nd day

Jurors in the Sarah Palin e-mail hacking trial are expected to begin a second day of deliberations in Tennessee.On Tuesday, the federal jury in the felony case again...

The 15-year-old girl who authorities say was brutally attacked by another teen at a Florida middle school has left the hospital.Family attorney Rick Freedman says Jo...

Wet and snowy conditions were forecast to persist over the Western half of the country Wednesday.A low pressure system would continue moving over the West Coast and ...

A Canada goose with a hunter's 26-inch arrow sticking out of its chest picked the right place to land."This is a smart goose," said Bernard Levine, the retired veter...

Aboard the submarine USS Florida, there's no e-mail or phone, no breaks for sunshine or fresh air. For many Navy sailors serving 90-day tours in cramped quarters underwater...

Eleven suspected Somali pirates accused in separate attacks on two Navy ships off the coast of Africa are due before a U.S. magistrate in a Virginia courtroom.The de...

The father of a former Air Force intelligence specialist was left to wonder why his son went from leading a "squeaky clean" life to being accused of claiming he had explosi...

One of the state's most notorious dealers in untaxed cigarettes may soon be freed from prison, thanks to what a judge called a "lack of clarity" in New York laws regulating...

Widener University President James T. Harris III had only one question before hopping on a mini-motorbike to deliver newspapers across campus: "Where's the brake?"No...

The Coast Guard is considering setting fire to a large oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to keep the mess away from shore as efforts to cap a spewing well fail.Crews h...

The federal government wants to save taxpayers billions of dollars by reducing spending on crop insurance after years of big profits by insurers, but the industry claims th...

Police say a woman who parked her SUV at a Department of Motor Vehicles office on New York's Long Island had a fake license plate and was arrested.Nassau County poli...

A spring storm in northern New York and New England has dumped more than a foot of snow in some areas.Some of the heaviest-hit places are in Vermont. The National We...

They began arriving before dawn on a cold, misty morning, people of all ages lining up by the hundreds, some in wheelchairs, others hobbling on crutches, many of them missi...

A New York-based human rights group says the torture of Iraqi detainees at a makeshift Baghdad prison housing mostly Sunnis was routine and systematic.Human Rights W...

County officials in Silicon Valley trying to curb childhood obesity voted Tuesday to ban restaurants from giving away toys and other freebies that often come with high-calo...

A Craigslist ad offering a 4-year-old boy for sale for $5,000 was the work of a bored north Idaho teen, according to Sandpoint, Idaho, police.Sandpoint Lt. Corey Coo...

A suburban Denver woman has pleaded guilty to reduced charges after authorities say she tried to poison her sheriff's deputy husband by spiking his salad with a lethal plan...