College and university endowments suffered huge losses in the fiscal year that ended last June, a new report finds, but stronger investment returns in recent months point t...

Californians are in a dour mood, with three-quarters of adults believing the state is on the wrong course, according to a poll released Wednesday by the Public Policy Insti...

Today is Thursday, Jan. 28, the 28th day of 2010. There are 337 days left in the year.Today's Highlight in History:On Jan. 28, 1980, in what became kno...

Gregory Powell was denied parole Wednesday 47 years after he and a partner kidnapped two Los Angeles police officers and killed one in a case made famous by a book and movi...

A Colorado man says marijuana is the main sacrament of his religion and a drug charge against him violates his First Amendment rights.Trevor Douglas of Avon says he ...

NBC says it has a deal with Conan O'Brien to produce a possible series, only days after his rancorous exit as host of the network's "Tonight Show."NBC is picking up ...

San Francisco area transit officials say they've agreed to make a $1.5 million settlement payment in the fatal shooting of a 22-year-old man by a transit police officer.Nearly 50 inmates involved in Wash. prison fight

A Washington state penitentiary spokeswoman says guards used pepper spray to break up a fight involving nearly 50 inmates at the Walla Walla prison.Spokeswoman Shari...

Four days before James O'Keefe was charged in a plot to tamper with the office phones of Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu, the conservative activist promised his audience at a...

An astronaut is donating an American flag that traveled aboard the NASA space shuttle Atlantis to New York City in honor of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.<...

A man convicted of a triple murder in eastern Pennsylvania that authorities called a "gangland hit" has been sentenced to life in prison without parole after jurors deadloc...

The two surviving members of a group of would-be stickup artists thwarted by a shotgun-wielding Harlem restaurant supply store owner have pleaded guilty to robbery.P...

Elizabeth Edwards has separated from husband John Edwards, the former presidential candidate who lied about cheating on his cancer-stricken wife and the child he fathered d...

Federal prosecutors on Wednesday charged a New York man accused of trying to open a commercial airplane's exterior door during a flight from Washington, D.C., to Las Vegas....

Researchers say a fatal fish virus has been found in Lake Superior for the first time, meaning it has spread to all the Great Lakes.Cornell University scientists sai...

State police say a truck driver was watching pornographic movies on his laptop computer when his rig struck a disabled car on the New York State Thruway near Buffalo last m...

A Wyoming gubernatorial candidate has cut ties with a volunteer who used a bit of online trickery to misdirect people trying to visit her opponent's Web site.Republi...

The California case of a mother who says her 7-year old daughter died from a fatal reaction to Botox treatments for cerebral palsy is believed to be the first case alleging...

A lawyer for the brother of Ponzi king Bernard Madoff says his client has been told he is a "subject" of criminal investigators probing the multibillion-dollar fraud.Was motivation speaker's NYC death a suicide?, Jennifer Peltz

From the start, the man accused of killing motivational speaker Jeffrey Locker told a startling tale: He said Locker asked for help stabbing himself to death so his family ...

Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the company's much-anticipated iPad tablet computer Wednesday, calling it a new third category of mobile device that is neither smart phone no...

Howard Zinn, an author, teacher and political activist whose leftist "A People's History of the United States" became a million-selling alternative to mainstream texts and ...

Secretly recorded meetings show the deputy mayor of New Jersey's second-largest city eagerly welcoming the entreaties of a federal informant posing as a corrupt developer, ...

A Wyoming gubernatorial candidate has cut ties with a volunteer who used a bit of online trickery to misdirect visitors trying to link to her opponent's Web site.Rep...

Federal prosecutors have charged a New York man accused of trying to open a commercial airplane's exterior door during a flight from Washington, D.C., to Las Vegas.T...

Air testing over one of the nation's biggest natural gas fields revealed two sites with extremely high levels of cancer-causing benzene and 19 more with elevated levels of ...

A southwestern Ohio woman has filed a lawsuit accusing a sixth-grade teacher and a teacher's aide of humiliating her son for his long hair by tying it into ponytails, makin...

Witnesses could be charged with a misdemeanor for failing to report violent attacks in California under legislation approved by the state Assembly.The bill by Democr...

Former presidential candidate John Edwards said Wednesday he still cares deeply about his wife despite the couple's separation."It is an extraordinarily sad moment, ...

A U.S.-trained Pakistani scientist accused of trying to kill American personnel while detained in Afghanistan should be allowed to testify at her trial despite her courtroo...

Was it an attempt at political espionage? Or just a third-rate prank? And was anyone else involved?In what some Democrats are calling the "Louisiana Watergate," four...

Toyota dealers across the country were swamped with calls Wednesday from concerned drivers but had few answers a day after the company announced it would stop selling and b...

Monrovia police say a man who barricaded himself in a bank entrance and claimed to have a bomb has surrendered in the Los Angeles foothill suburb .City spokesman Dic...

In a story Jan. 26 about the asylum case of a German couple who fled to the U.S. to homeschool their children, The Associated Press misidentified the family's hometown in G...

A 41-year-old Nebraska woman is accused of having sex nightly with her teenage son when he was in seventh and eighth grades, officials said Wednesday.Omaha Police sa...

A former Federal Emergency Management Agency worker and her cousin have pleaded guilty to orchestrating one of the biggest Hurricane Katrina scams to become public since th...

A plane carrying two MSNBC television show hosts has made an emergency landing in South Carolina after a pilot reported smoke in the cockpit.MSNBC personalities Mika...

An Indian tribe will get a chance to argue the state of Wyoming never should have prosecuted a member in the beating death of his baby daughter because the attack happened ...

Eighteen-year-olds still won't be full adults under Nebraska law, but will be closer to it under a bill making its way through the state Legislature.Lawmakers gave f...

Fifty people have been arrested in a crackdown of two Southern California gangs that were engaged in what authorities call a deadly race war.The multi-agency bust cu...

Toyota Motor Corp. has stopped selling and building eight models, saying there's a possibility that their accelerator pedals may get stuck in a partially depressed position...

Authorities say a woman who had been out celebrating her lottery winnings at a north-central Ohio bar was killed when she was struck by a car.The Ohio Highway Patrol...

In a story Jan. 26 about an alleged plot to tamper with the phones in U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu's office, The Associated Press reported erroneously that ACORN lost its federa...

Charlie Sheen's wife is recovering at a North Carolina wellness center after an infection that nearly took her life, her lawyer said Wednesday.Yale Galanter said Bro...

Family and friends have gathered near Boston at a wake for the father of figure skater Nancy Kerrigan.Seventy-year-old Daniel Kerrigan died Sunday after what authori...

The man accused of killing motivational speaker Jeffrey Locker has always said Locker asked for help committing suicide. Now Manhattan prosecutors and a defense lawyer say ...

Haitians enrolled as international students at American colleges and universities could get emergency grants if they're facing financial difficulties in the wake of the Hai...

Defense attorneys have "a formidable and daunting task" ahead if the man who has confessed to killing a Kansas abortion provider is hoping for a chance at a lesser sentence...

Higher Medicare copays, sometimes just a few dollars more, led to fewer doctors visits and to more and longer hospital stays, a large new study reveals.With health c...

A former employee of a New Mexico construction company with contracts in Iraq has pleaded guilty to illegally bringing more than $800,000 into the United States.The ...

A 3-year-old New Jersey boy was hailed as a hero after he called 911 on Friday after his grandmother had a seizure. Jaden Bolli was at grandmother Patricia Bolli's home in ...

Monrovia authorities say several hundred people have been evacuated from buildings in the Los Angeles foothill suburb after a man claiming to have a bomb tried to enter a b...

An Ohio woman accuses a teacher and an aide in a lawsuit of humiliating her son for his long hair by tying it into ponytails and encouraging students to mock him.Ama...

Prosecutors on Wednesday began battling Drew Peterson's attorneys over a crucial question a jury will have to answer at the former police officer's upcoming trial — wheth...

Elizabeth Edwards has separated from her husband, two-time presidential candidate John Edwards, after a tumultuous three years in which the couple's marital troubles became...

The first attempt to regulate Colorado's medical marijuana industry has passed its first test at the Capitol.The Senate Health & Human Services Committee voted 6...

A Utah House committee has approved a bill that would let charges be filed against a woman who tries to arrange an illegal abortion.The bill sponsored by Republican ...

Army officials agreed to delay a mental evaluation for the man suspected of going on a shooting spree at Fort Hood until after a military court hearing that will determine ...

Racially motivated attacks by gangs on black teenagers has created a "toxic environment" that forced families out of a California city and has left at least one teenager de...

Two teenage volunteer firefighters who were reported missing after they didn't show up for a training drill for their small-town department died along with a friend when th...

Police in suburban Philadelphia are trying to figure out how a woman crashed her car into her own house. Police said the crash happened early Wednesday morning in Harleysvi...

An arbitration panel is sending the owners and developer of ground zero back to the negotiating table to hammer out a new schedule for rebuilding the World Trade Center sit...

A Spanish company plans to invest $1 billion to build a large solar energy production plant in New Mexico.Gov. Bill Richardson joined Wednesday with executives of GA...

The first federal case to decide if the U.S. Constitution prevents states from stopping same-sex weddings came to an anti-climatic break Wednesday after a judge heard nearl...

An overdone bagel forced the evacuation of Portland's City Hall. The Oregonian reported that City Hall emptied for about 20 minutes Wednesday morning while firefighters dea...

A jewelry store worker was shot to death in a brazen midday robbery Wednesday in a shop on posh Madison Avenue, police said.Two people were working at R.S. Durant at...

Friends and family of a Utah woman missing since December have decorated her empty home with purple bows and hearts in hopes of renewing public interest in the case....

Authorities have lifted the lockdown of a building on Northwestern University's Chicago campus.The school issued an alert earlier Wednesday for people in the Rubloff...

Colorado lawmakers have an unlikely ally in their first attempt to curb the state's booming medical marijuana industry: owners of the some of the shops that sell pot.NASA sets Feb. launch date for shuttle Endeavour, Marcia Dunn

NASA has set an early February launch date for space shuttle Endeavour.Senior managers met Wednesday and decided unanimously to proceed toward a Feb. 7 launch date f...

A judge has thrown out a lawsuit that accused New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner of breaking a promise to make a former Madison Square Garden president a big part o...

An attacker could find many places to hide at Hocking College, a campus carved into a forest in the Appalachian foothills. And with the threat of a mass killing looming ove...

South Dakota needs to raise its gas tax and other highway taxes and fees to cover substantial increases in the cost of building and maintaining its roads and bridges, state...

Where should the men accused of planning the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks be tried? Not here, say New York City business and community leaders whose list of alternatives incl...

Joseph Gordon-Levitt charmed Sundance Film Festival fans a year ago with the romance "(500) Days of Summer."Now the "3rd Rock From the Sun" co-star is assailing Sund...

A San Diego girl who acknowledged beating her adoptive mother to death with a claw hammer when she was 14 has been given 16 years to life in state prison.Sixteen-yea...

An Environmental Protection Agency official says he will visit a California farm town near the largest toxic waste dump in the West, but the agency has no plans to investig...

America Ferrera came to the Sundance Film Festival eight years ago as an unknown with only one professional acting gig behind her. She's back as a star.The star of "...

Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad:Jan. 23The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, on health care reform:If their...

Police and fire officials have identified two teenage volunteer firefighters and a third teen who died when a sport-utility vehicle plunged into a western Pennsylvania pond...

Singer and producer Wyclef Jean is working with his foundation to deliver cooked meals, water and medical assistance to survivors of the devastating earthquake in Haiti.2 off-duty LAPD officers held in pistol-whipping

Authorities say two off-duty Los Angeles police officers have been arrested after a man was pistol-whipped during a confrontation.Whittier police say 29-year-old Bra...

Federal prosecutors said Wednesday they expect a grand jury to produce a fresh indictment against former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich by the end of next week. But the new ...

New York's attorney general warned Internet retailers Wednesday that they should stop funneling unsuspecting customers into "deceptive" Web discount clubs that have been ac...

Michael Douglas' son has pleaded guilty to trafficking large quantities of methamphetamine and cocaine.Cameron Douglas entered the plea Wednesday in Manhattan federa...

More states are requiring schools and government buildings to use environmentally friendly cleaning products, raising debate about their costs and benefits.After a b...

Harvard biologist and runner Daniel Lieberman had a simple question: "How did people run without shoes?"The answer he got is: Much better.At least running bar...

Scientists have for the first time confirmed color in a dinosaur. Don't think purple Barney, but reddish-orange Conan O'Brien. The first solid proof of pigmentation has bee...

Police are searching a building at Northwestern University's campus in downtown Chicago after receiving a report that a man inside may have a gun.An alert posted on ...

A man who was once a suspect in the unsolved serial slayings of nine Massachusetts women has died, more than 20 years after the so-called "highway killings" terrorized wome...

The founder of a family values think-tank testified Wednesday that the rights of same-sex couples should come second to preserving the cherished social institution of marri...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it will investigate a cluster of birth defects in a central California town near the largest toxic-waste dump in the West....

From poisons to nets to electric jolts, authorities are studying a series of desperate measures to ward off an invasion of the Great Lakes by hefty, hungry Asian carp.<...

Four men accused of trying to tamper with Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu's office phones shared a common experience as young ideologues writing for conservative publica...

The first trial to explore whether the U.S. Constitution guarantees gay and lesbians the right to marry is moving to a close with testimony from the founder of a family val...

State police confirm skeletal remains found in a remote farm field are those of missing Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington.Investigators said Wednesday the conf...

Pennsylvania food safety inspectors say the problem-plagued state Capitol cafeteria still isn't maintaining proper standards for food handling, and a recent inspection foun...

A San Diego teen who acknowledged beating her adoptive mother to death with a claw hammer when she was 14 is scheduled to be sentenced for murder.Sixteen-year-old He...

A Chicago man accused of helping scout out the Indian city of Mumbai before the 2008 terrorist attack that left 166 people dead and plotting to attack a Danish newspaper pl...

The family of a teenager who said three police officers assaulted him plans to file a civil rights lawsuit against the police department and on Wednesday his mother said th...

A Washington state SWAT officer shot and killed a young bull after deputies, the animal's owner and others failed in a five-hour attempt to stop it from running loose near ...

Gregory Powell is facing a parole hearing 47 years after he kidnapped and killed a Los Angeles police officer in a case made famous in the book and movie, "The Onion Field....

A California school district that pulled a dictionary from classrooms because it defined oral sex will allow it back on the shelves.A committee of parents, teachers ...

So you think you can dance at the Jefferson Memorial? Think again.A federal judge has ruled against a woman who was arrested for dancing with a group of 17 others at...

Two off-duty Los Angeles police officers have been arrested for allegedly pistol-whipping a man during a fight.Police in the Los Angeles suburb of Whittier booked th...

Sweet news for baby boomers: Despite all those warnings that loud rock music would damage their ears, their generation appears to have better hearing than their parents did...

It was John B. Baus's 82nd birthday. When he was getting ready to go out with his wife, he had a heart attack and ended up on his way to the emergency room instead.D...

The uncle of a Colorado airport driver charged with plotting to attack New York City with homemade bombs has been indicted in a widening terror probe, two law enforcement o...

People in the courtroom for the trial of the man accused of killing Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller need to watch their behavior as the case heads to its more "e...

2010 Honda Fit Sport VSABASE PRICE: $14,900 for base model with manual transmission; $15,700 for base with automatic; $16,410 for base Sport with manual; $17,260 for...

Go figure. Even in a bad economic year like 2009, Honda surpassed its original sales projections for its compact Fit hatchback.Maybe it was the fact the five-door Fi...

Connecticut authorities have decided not to prosecute a businessman who was arrested last year during a corruption investigation.Carlos Lopez was charged with voting...

Police say a man in Ohio got so upset over a mistake on the price of crab cakes that he punched a grocery store manager several times and spit in his face. Authorities in S...

The bodies of three missing teenagers were pulled Wednesday morning from an icy Pennsylania pond where their vehicle crashed, including two who were firefighters for their ...

The Molokai settlement where Saint Damien cared for Hansen's disease patients would be managed by the Department of Hawaiian Homelands under a bill before the Legislature.<...

A man who allegedly yelled "I want to kill all the Jews" on a Detroit-bound plane at Miami International Airport has pleaded not guilty.The written plea was entered ...

A fire captain says two bodies so far pulled from a pond in western Pennsylvania where a car was found submerged are those of teenage volunteer firefighters.Police i...

Emergency officials say a boulder about the size of a compact car crashed into an apartment in eastern Tennessee, barely missing a woman sleeping in her bedroom.Fire...

A disbarred attorney who courted politicians and star athletes and led a flamboyant lifestyle even by South Florida standards pleaded guilty Wednesday to federal charges th...

Ex-presidential candidate John Edwards says separation from wife 'extraordinarily sad moment.'...

New York Gov. David Paterson is taking on the two-century old tradition of horse-drawn carriage rides in Manhattan's Central Park, saying the horses need to be treated bett...

A former Connecticut pharmacist who created an online sex posting for a customer after arguing with her has been spared jail time.Jonathan Medina was sentenced to tw...

An animal rights group wants organizers of Pennsylvania's Groundhog Day festival to replace Punxsutawney Phil with a robotic stand-in.People for the Ethical Treatmen...

Police say they believe divers have found the bodies of two teenagers and are looking for a third in a western Pennsylvania pond where a car was found submerged.Poli...

Disbarred South Florida attorney Scott Rothstein is set to plead guilty to federal charges that he ran a $1.2 billion Ponzi scheme using phony legal settlements.Roth...

Residents of 25 homes evacuated after a landslide split a retaining wall and threatened to topple hilltop homes will not be allowed to return for at least 10 days as engine...

Ruth Proskauer Smith, a reproductive rights pioneer, has died at the age of 102.In 1969, Smith helped form the first steering committee of the National Association f...

The North was expected to remain snowy on Wednesday as high pressure allowed for sunny skies and mild weather in the South.A low pressure system was expected to push...

Fewer beekeepers are reporting evidence of a mysterious ailment that had been decimating the U.S. honeybee population.But losses due to colony collapse disorder rema...

Prosecutors are wrapping up their murder case against the man charged with fatally shooting a Kansas abortion provider at his Wichita church.The state's case against...

Wildlife officials fear the world's only remaining natural flock of endangered whooping cranes could be at risk of another winter die-off.The flock suffered a record...

Oregon has set aside its history of shooting down tax increases on statewide ballots, with voters endorsing higher taxes on businesses and the rich amid a brutal economic s...

Allowing same-sex couples to get married would improve the well-being of children raised by gay parents but should not be pursued as social policy because it would further ...

On the eve of President Barack Obama's first State of the Union, officials in a South Carolina town announced funding for a crumbling school he had cited in a speech nearly...

Newly released government files offer a glimpse into the money troubles that plagued Anna Nicole Smith at the height of her notoriety, ranging from millions in missing jewe...

The four men accused of trying to tamper with Democratic U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu's office phones share a common experience as young ideologues writing for conservative publ...

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has sided with the Santa Barbara News-Press in a labor dispute.The court ruled Tuesday that forcing the newspaper to rehire emp...

Federal Aviation Administration officials say an error by an air traffic controller allowed a commuter plane to get too close to a Boeing 767 on approach to Los Angeles Int...