States may be forced to reduce benefits, raise taxes or slash government services to address a $1 trillion funding shortfall in public sector retirement benefits, according...

Today is Thursday, Feb. 18, the 49th day of 2010. There are 316 days left in the year.Today's Highlight in History:On Feb. 18, 1885, Mark Twain's "Adve...

Jurors in Washington state have convicted a 32-year-old man of murder in the stabbing death of a cab driver who came to the U.S. to escape the violence of his native Somali...

More than 20 students and staff members showed symptoms of carbon monoxide exposure at a school Wednesday, but officials were stumped when air tests turned up none of the t...

A 15-year-old girl whose videotaped beating in the Seattle bus tunnel has drawn a national outcry has herself been charged in two earlier attacks.The Seattle Times r...

With their construction work finished, the 11 astronauts aboard the shuttle-station complex accepted congratulations Wednesday from President Barack Obama, who assured them...

Prosecutors urged a state panel Wednesday to punish a Texas judge for refusing to keep her court open past 5 p.m. to hear a last-minute appeal by a death-row inmate, and to...

An October trial date in New York has been set for a wealthy financier charged in what prosecutors call history's largest hedge fund insider trading case.Federal Jud...

The J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Sicilian cultural ministry will collaborate to conserve art objects, stage exhibitions and do scholarly research.The ...

An Anchorage man avoided the death penalty Wednesday but was sentenced to life in prison for killing his neighbor — after getting into a heated exchange with a judge who ...

Mitt Romney's upcoming book tour looks a lot like a presidential campaign schedule.The 2008 Republican presidential contender will be visiting 19 states, including I...

A southwestern Pennsylvania woman was charged with hitting her adult son with a Louisville Slugger after she allegedly came home drunk. Linda Newstrom, 49, faces a prelimin...

An aide to hospitalized New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg says the senator is "recovering comfortably" in the hospital and is anxious to get back to work.The 86-year-...

A few years ago, a star surgeon at a prominent Chicago hospital implanted a small triangular heart device he helped invent in more than 150 patients. Now a heavyweight sena...

In a story Feb. 10 about human trafficking in Ohio, The Associated Press incorrectly spelled the surname of Ohio's attorney general. His correct name is Richard Cordray, no...

Armed with sprawling fishing nets and boats equipped with electric prods, state and federal fisheries biologists began a "search-and-destroy" mission in Chicago-area waterw...

A federal judge in Chicago who was barraged by e-mails from supporters of best-selling author and infomercial pitchman Kevin Trudeau has sentenced Trudeau to 30 days in jai...

Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with questions about the new Post-9/11 GI Bill will again be able to get help by phone five days a week starting Thursday.Veterans Affa...

A twin-engine plane carrying three employees of electric car maker Tesla Motors struck a set of power lines after takeoff Wednesday and crashed into a fog-shrouded resident...

First it was gas pedals, then brakes. Now Toyota and the government are looking into complaints that the popular Corolla is difficult to steer straight, raising a new safet...

Federal agents have searched the Nashville factory of military weapons manufacturer Sabre Defence Industries.Jim Cavanaugh, special agent in charge of the Nashville ...

A judge has declared a mistrial in the case of a Detroit political consultant charged with public corruption.Federal prosecutors say they will retry Sam Riddle, who ...

A police officer's badge may have saved his life when it stopped a bullet during an exchange of gunfire in North Las Vegas.Police say the 31-year-old officer was pat...

It's quite the man cave.Jimmy Grey says he's been out of work for almost a year and needed a project to stay busy. So with the heavy snowfall this winter, the 25-yea...

A man whose iPhone was stolen from his car used GPS to track it down. Tiernan Paine left a $400 phone in his unlocked car while at Kingdom Hall of Jehovah's Witnesses in Oa...

A woman was charged with driving under the influence after showing up at the Flagler County jail and demanding a conjugal visit with a specific inmate. The sheriff's office...

The dogs in New Orleans' Carnival pet parade included a pooch that hitched a ride 1,200 miles from Taos, New Mexico, to the city where his 26-year-old master had hitchhiked...

This Robin Hood is accused of stealing — and not to give to the poor. Authorities said a 34-year-old named Robin Joshua Hood found someone's wallet in downtown Denver and...

A Tampa man has been charged with trying to set his father on fire with a makeshift blowtorch. The Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office reported a 52-year-old man doused hi...

Dozens of students from a Rhode Island high school who skipped classes for a free breakfast at Denny's got grand slammed with suspensions.Officials at West Warwick H...

A stream of good news has the stock market back on an upward path.Encouraging corporate and economic reports Wednesday raised hopes that a recovery is taking hold al...

A Vermont man accused of biting off part of the groom's eyebrow at a wedding reception has been found not guilty of aggravated assault.A jury in Barre acquitted 35-y...

An Idaho Baptist pastor offered mixed feelings Wednesday on the decision by a Haitian judge to release eight of 10 American missionaries charged with child kidnapping after...

Nearly 1 1/2 years after Hurricane Ike battered Galveston, this southeast Texas island community fears the natural disaster could land another harsh blow.Galveston o...

The Duane Reade drugstore chain is ubiquitous in parts of New York City yet exists nowhere else.Now that Walgreen has announced it will buy the chain, Duane Reade sh...

A 9-year-old girl clutching a Valentine's Day teddy bear testified Wednesday in the murder trial of the woman she called her "ex-mother" and who is accused of killing the g...

The use of high-tech diagnostic imaging in emergency rooms has quadrupled since the mid-1990s, according to a new government report released Wednesday.MRI, CT or PET...

The first U.S. clinical trials in more than two decades on the medical benefits of marijuana confirm pot is effective in reducing muscle spasms associated with multiple scl...

Lawyers defending New York City against thousands of lawsuits filed by Sept. 11 emergency responders say many of the claims are baseless and have asked a judge to dismiss s...

A glowing comet. A star-forming cloud. A new view of the Andromeda galaxy. A dense galaxy cluster.NASA on Wednesday released the first images from its sky-mapping sp...

The special election to fill the term of the late U.S. Rep. John Murtha will be held on Pennsylvania's primary election day, May 18.Gov. Ed Rendell made the announce...

A judge has ruled that if the brother of figure skater Nancy Kerrigan posts bond, he can live in the Massachusetts house where he is accused of assaulting his father, who l...

President Barack Obama's award of billions of dollars in federal nuclear loan guarantees to Southern Co. has angered environmentalists who say the president is embracing th...

A psychologist is accused of having sex multiple times with one of his female patients and billing her insurance company $1,400 for "sessions," according to records from th...

A Lamborghini-driving steakhouse owner who disappeared after being accused of cheating banks out of tens of millions of dollars was arrested in Texas and returned to Virgin...

A police officer who shot and killed a chimpanzee last year after it mauled a woman has been denied a claim for workers' compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder bec...

After criticism for a string of deadly shootings by deputies, the nation's largest sheriff's department told officers Wednesday to think twice before chasing and trying to ...

The three people killed on board a small plane that went down in a Northern California neighborhood were all employees of Tesla Motors Inc.The twin-engine Cessna 310...

Shreveport police said a man accused of brandishing a box-cutter in an attempted holdup was found inside a box, in his bedroom closet. Cpl. Bill Goodin, a police spokesman,...

A Des Moines man who accepted a ride offered by a motorist told police he was robbed by the supposed good Samaritan. Matthew Lee Scott, 23, said after his vehicle ran out o...

An environmental contractor dramatically underreported the level of a cancer-causing chemical found in tap water at Camp Lejeune, then omitted it altogether as the Marine b...

A small plane that went down in a Northern California neighborhood, killing all three aboard, is owned by an employee of Tesla Motors Inc.The twin-engine Cessna 310 ...

A pathologist hired by a former suburban Chicago police sergeant's attorneys testified Wednesday that the death of Drew Peterson's third wife was accidental and not a homic...

A marriage got off to a rocky start after the 21-year-old groom from northern Idaho was arrested twice on his wedding night and charged with assaulting his new wife in near...

Former President Bill Clinton said Wednesday that he will manage his stress better after undergoing a procedure to unclog a blocked artery, but emphasized that he has no in...

There may be nothing like the real thing, but some industrious marijuana users have seized on an obscure but easily accessible substance that mimics the drug's effects on t...

A Pittsburgh-area community college will let a student form a campus chapter of a group that promotes the rights of students to carry concealed weapons.A Community C...

A small plane crashed Wednesday in a residential neighborhood shrouded in heavy fog, killing all three aboard, igniting fires and scattering debris onto a house where a chi...

Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad:Feb. 12The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, on the American Civil Liberties Union...

Thousands of National Guard soldiers who served extra-long deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and other conflicts were supposed to get paid time off when they came home three...

An Anchorage man avoided the death penalty Wednesday when he acknowledged in court that he killed his neighbor in 2007 and another woman in 2000 — for whose murder he was...

The president of a concrete testing company that worked on such New York City landmarks as the new Yankee Stadium was convicted Wednesday of concocting phony test results, ...

Air tests at a New Hampshire school where more than 20 people showed symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning have turned up no elevated levels of the gas.Derry Fire Ch...

The mother of a former football player accused of fatally shooting his high school coach testified Wednesday that her son suffered from severe bouts of depression and occas...

A Colorado man accused of trying to destroy chemicals and other evidence in the terror case against his son was granted bail Wednesday, but ordered not to speak to his son....

The president of a concrete testing company that worked on such New York City landmarks as the new Yankee Stadium was convicted Wednesday of concocting phony test results, ...

A North Carolina man who insisted he was innocent of murder through more than 16 years in prison was declared a free man Wednesday after a groundbreaking exoneration presse...

Sheriff's deputies in Los Angeles County are being directed to avoid chasing armed suspects under a new policy to reduce shootings by deputies.The new guidelines, to...

Haitian attorney says 8 of 10 Americans charged with child kidnapping will be released....

The U.N. says gunmen opened fire on a convoy in South Darfur, wounding seven Pakistani police officers serving with the African Union-United Nations peacekeeping force....

Suzuki SX4 SportBackBASE PRICE: $17,949.AS TESTED: $19,248.TYPE: Front-engine, front-wheel drive, five-passenger, compact hatchback.ENGINE: 2-li...

Suzuki's SX4, known as the all-wheel drive car with the lowest starting retail price in America, adds a new, flashier model for 2010, and it doesn't come with all-wheel dri...

Scientists who decoded the DNA of some southern Africans have found striking new evidence of the genetic diversity on that continent, and uncovered a surprise about the anc...

New York Gov. David Paterson on Wednesday criticized a news report about a longtime aide who has become a close adviser despite two drug arrests in his youth and unproven r...

Words like "peace" and "mercy" are vital to talking about Christianity. They're just two of many English words difficult to translate smoothly as an evolving Episcopal cong...

A New Hampshire school has been evacuated after more than 20 people showed symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning, including a teacher and student who collapsed.Fire ...

Students banded together to let administrators know something wasn't quite right about Professor Amy Bishop. She taught by reading straight out of the textbook, never made ...

A small plane crashed Wednesday in a residential neighborhood shrouded in heavy fog, killing all three aboard, igniting fires and scattering debris onto a house where a chi...

The mother of a former Iowa football player accused of shooting his high school coach says her son suffered from severe bouts of depression and occasionally violent episode...

Emergency crews are at the scene of a small plane crash in an East Palo Alto neighborhood.Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor says a Cessna 310 cras...

Bill Clinton is officially back at work.Just days after undergoing a procedure to unclog a blocked artery, the former president is talking about childhood obesity, w...

New government statistics show the rate of high-tech diagnostic imaging has dramatically increased since the mid-1990s.From 1996 to 2007, the frequency of MRI, CT or...

A twin-engine plane crashed into a concrete storage building in the Texas Panhandle city of Amarillo on Wednesday, killing the pilot and his passenger, authorities said.Mumps outbreak in NY, NJ tops 1,500 cases, Mike Stobbe

A mumps outbreak among Orthodox Jews in New York and New Jersey has now surpassed 1,500 cases and shows no sign of ending soon, health officials said Thursday.The 7-...

In the autism world, "Aspies" are sometimes seen as the elites, the ones who are socially awkward, yet academically gifted and who embrace their quirkiness.Now, many...

Bill Clinton has a new lease on life, but there's no cure for the heart disease that has twice forced the former president to get blocked arteries fixed.Treatments l...

An annual tally of church membership in the U.S. found gains by the Roman Catholic Church, the Mormon church and the Assemblies of God last year, while mainline denominatio...

A 51-year-old Ohio man has embraced the Valentine's Day spirit faster than anyone before, giving 7,777 hugs in 24 hours for a new world record.Jeff Ondash, who sough...

Swine flu cases are down, but health officials say the disease's cumulative impact has grown to 57 million U.S. illnesses, 257,000 hospitalizations and 11,690 deaths.Individual insurance rates soar in 4 states, Linda A. Johnson

Consumers in at least four states who buy their own health insurance are getting hit with premium increases of 15 percent or more — and people in other states could see t...

Wildlife officials have begun their hunt for the destructive Asian carp in Chicago-area waterways.Officials already have DNA evidence that suggests the fish has made...

An Army National Guard spokesman says two civilian construction workers were injured when a bathroom ceiling in an unoccupied barracks building fell on them.Sgt. Jam...

The father of a Colorado airport van driver accused of plotting to attack New York City with homemade bombs will have a bail hearing in his obstruction case.FBI agen...

Two Pennsylvania brothers on an upstate New York wine tour have been charged with beating up a winery owner who tried to eject them for drunkeness.State police say 2...

Police in Southern California are trying to identify a human head that was found inside a backpack in the San Bernardino County desert.Police says a man collecting c...

A Massachusetts congressman who was the lead prosecutor when a suspected university shooter killed her brother in 1986 says he has a very limited memory of the case....

When police finally tracked down Amy Bishop on the day she shot and killed her teenage brother in 1986, she was crouching behind a parked car, carrying a shotgun at waist l...

Authorities say an autistic child died in a fire that he apparently set while he was left alone in a Brooklyn apartment.His grandmother was arrested after the Tuesda...

Federal officials say Rhode Island-based Daniele International is expanding its recall of salami products that may be contaminated with salmonella.The U.S. Departmen...

A car plowed into a crowd at a north Georgia auto auction and sent more than a dozen people to hospitals, including at least six with serious injuries.Georgia State ...

A man who snatched his infant daughter from the arms of her maternal grandmother while the child's mother was in court getting a restraining order against him told police h...

Three New York police officers who killed an unarmed man in a 50-shot barrage outside a seedy strip club hours before his wedding will not face civil rights charges, federa...

A fairly quiet day was expected across the U.S. on Wednesday, with only a few areas expected to see measurable precipitation.In the Northeast, a large low pressure s...

After months of growing tension between Jewish and Muslim students at the University of California, Irvine, the Zionist Organization of America is asking potential students...

The last decade was lousy for Illinois Republicans. They lost a Senate seat, their party's last governor went to prison and they were shut out of every statewide office.Tut's ills won't kill fascination, historians say, Lindsey Tanner

It turns out Egypt's beloved boy-king wasn't so golden after all — or much of a wild and crazy guy, for that matter.But will research showing King Tut was actually...

The vote to ban the sale of dogs and cats in this famously liberal enclave will likely have more bark than bite, since no pet stores in the city currently sell animals....

Some of mankind's most devastating inherited diseases appear to be declining, and a few have nearly disappeared, because more people are using genetic testing to decide whe...

Seconds after faculty members forced their colleague Amy Bishop out of the cramped conference room where police said she opened fire, the survivors huddled together and bra...

Maine dairy farmers hope their new organic milk, called MOOMilk, becomes as popular among natural-food buffs as Maine lobster is among seafood lovers.Ten dairy farme...

Officials say an Oklahoma-bound flight was delayed several hours in Detroit as police questioned a suspicious passenger and searched the plane but found no threat.Pi...

An international press freedom watchdog said that 2009 saw a record number of journalists killed, including the single worst massacre in the Philippines, as well as an incr...

A man who boasted of exploits with booze and fast cars has pleaded guilty to running over two Missouri baseball fans who had just attended a Philadelphia Phillies game, kil...

In a highly anticipated grand finale to their mission, astronauts opened the shutters on the International Space Station's new observation deck Wednesday and were humbled b...

The Zionist Organization of America on Tuesday asked potential students and donors to the University of California, Irvine to look elsewhere after months of growing tension...

Sheriff's deputies have seized more than 600 chickens that authorities believe were being trained for cockfighting from a Southern California property.Authorities sa...

A Coast Guard vessel was traveling at an unsafe speed when it struck and killed an 8-year-old boy who was at a Christmas parade on his family boat, the family alleges in a ...

The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Tuesday called the fatal police shooting of an unarmed black man an execution and criticized plans to allow the officer to return to regular duty ...