Today is Friday, March 12, the 71st day of 2010. There are 294 days left in the year.Today's Highlight in History:On March 12, 1933, President Franklin...

Marine mammal experts say dozens of hungry and sick sea lion pups have washed up on Southern California beaches this winter and many have died at rescue centers.Vete...

Authorities say four people were fatally struck by trains in the Northeast.The first death occurred in Mercer County in New Jersey on Thursday morning when Amtrak's ...

After years of fighting in court, lawyers representing the city, construction companies and more than 10,000 ground zero rescue and recovery workers have agreed to a settle...

California police say they are receiving calls from the public after releasing more than 100 photos apparently taken by convicted serial killer Rodney Alcala in the 1970s, ...

A New Jersey official says a suspected terrorist who worked at a complex of nuclear power plants did not breach security there.Mike Drewniak, a spokesman for Gov. Ch...

A federal judge has ordered a former northern Indiana mayor and two ex-aides to pay $108 million in civil damages in an alleged sidewalks-for-votes scheme.U.S. Distr...

Authorities say three people were fatally struck by trains in New Jersey and New York.The first death occurred in Mercer County in New Jersey on Thursday morning whe...

More drug-related cases were dismissed in San Francisco courtrooms Thursday, bringing to nearly 60 the number of cases thrown out over the past two days because of accusati...

Two people have been struck and killed by trains in separate accidents in New Jersey.The first death occurred in Mercer County on Thursday morning when Amtrak's Keys...

An engineering firm hired to oversee the reconstruction of city buildings and infrastructure damaged by Hurricane Katrina has been overcharging the city, including billing ...

A jury on Thursday awarded $95 million in damages to the families of eight people who claimed their loved ones were among dozens of patients murdered by a nurse considered ...

An Ohio State University janitor was armed with two handguns and more than 50 rounds of ammunition when he walked into a campus maintenance shop and shot two supervisors be...

An Indiana man whose cross-country crime spree with his girlfriend a decade ago ended in a gun battle with police in San Francisco was executed Thursday in Texas for killin...

Wolves likely killed a teacher jogging alone along a rural Alaska village road, public safety officials said Thursday.The Alaska State Medical Examiner listed "multi...

A spokesman for a group of nuclear power plants in New Jersey says a U.S. man charged in Yemen with being a member of al-Qaida had previously worked at the plants.PS...

After years of fighting in court, lawyers representing the city, construction companies and more than 10,000 ground zero rescue and recovery workers have agreed to a settle...

A federal appeals court upheld the use of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God We Trust" on U.S. currency, rejecting arguments Thursday that the ph...

Rescuers have been hip-deep in mud in a desperate effort to rescue 16 white-sided dolphins stranded on Massachusetts' Cape Cod, but at least two of the animals have died an...

A World War II-era plane crashed Thursday while attempting to land at a small suburban Phoenix airport, killing the pilot and starting a hangar on fire, authorities said.Autopsy concludes animal killed rural teacher, Dan Joling

An autopsy has concluded that a rural teacher was killed by animals, and the head of the Alaska State Troopers says wolves are the likely suspect.However, Col. Audie...

A Louisiana man accused of helping his father hide the body of a Ku Klux Klan recruit pleaded guilty Thursday to obstruction of justice and was sentenced to three years in ...

Kansas City school officials promised Thursday to shut down nearly half the district's schools by the start of classes in the fall without offering details of how they inte...

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has met with a developer a day before a deadline to work out a new schedule for rebuilding parts of the World Trade Center sit...

Constance McMillen didn't believe her Mississippi school district would really call off her senior prom rather than allow her to show up with her girlfriend and wear a tuxe...

The U.N. humanitarian chief says Israel's blockade of Gaza is not helping its security or weakening Hamas' hold on the territory.John Holmes also warned that as bad ...

A law firm for the driver who says his Toyota Prius sped out of control in California doesn't plan to sue the Japanese automaker.The Gomez Law Firm issued a statemen...

New Orleans' watchdog has found serious problems with the work of an engineering company hired to oversee the rebuilding of city buildings and infrastructure damaged in Hur...

Global climate change poses a significant threat to migratory bird populations, which are already stressed by the loss of habitat and environmental pollution, according to ...

John Nance, a former Associated Press reporter and photographer who covered the Vietnam War and later oversaw the news cooperative's operations in the Philippines, has died...

Constance McMillen didn't believe her Mississippi school district would really call off her senior prom rather than allow her to show up with her girlfriend and wear a tuxe...

Layoff notices have gone out to 600 employees of The Honolulu Advertiser.The notices say the workers will lose their jobs when owner Gannett Co. sells the newspaper ...

The American Civil Liberties Union sued state prison officials and a private company Thursday, claiming violence is so rampant at the Idaho Correctional Center that it's kn...

A helicopter from a suburban Washington police department made an emergency landing near a District of Columbia school, forcing its evacuation.D.C. fire department s...

The American Civil Liberties Union of Mississippi is suing to force a school district to host a prom it canceled after a lesbian student asked to bring her girlfriend and w...

The U.S. Forest Service must re-examine how livestock grazing affects sage grouse habitat in southwestern Montana after an appeals court ruled its original assessment was n...

A Georgia man who posted a video on YouTube of himself holding a sign saying "Elton John must die" has been arrested for making terroristic threats.Atlanta Police Sg...

A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld a Nevada law that bars legal brothels that operate in some of the state's rural areas from advertising by newspaper, leaflets and...

Just weeks after dealing with record-setting snowfall, residents in Pennsylvania, Ohio and New Jersey are preparing for the possibility of flooding.A large portion o...

Gov. Brian Schweitzer said Thursday that he is seeking federal permission to import cheaper drugs from Canada for use in state insurance programs.Schweitzer said he ...

Officials broke ground Thursday on a much-delayed 22-acre development project that will bring the NBA's New Jersey Nets to Brooklyn.As protesters chanted and staged ...

California's chinook salmon fishery is likely to be opened this year after two straight closed fishing seasons — but with restrictions, according to recommendations relea...

A rally in financial stocks Thursday helped the market extend its grind higher to a third day.The Standard & Poor's 500 index cleared an important hurdle watched...

A former classmate of the U.S. man accused of belonging to al-Qaida and shooting up a Yemeni hospital tells The Associated Press he exhibited radical religious views in hig...

A convicted sex offender charged with murdering one California teenager and under investigation for another killing violated his parole by moving too close to a school but ...

An Ohio State University janitor was armed with more 50 rounds of ammunition when he walked into a campus maintenance shop and shot two supervisors before killing himself, ...

Workers have reopened Interstate 70 in western Colorado, three days after a rock slide tore gaping holes in an elevated section and littered the highway with boulders.<...

The American Civil Liberties Union sued state prison officials and a private company Thursday, claiming violence is so rampant at the Idaho Correctional Center that it's kn...

A married couple charged in a hit-and-run crash that killed a University of Southern California student and seriously injured another in a crosswalk near campus pleaded no ...

A look at economic developments and activity in major stock markets around the world Thursday:___BEIJING — China's inflation spiked higher in February, addi...

A Georgia man who posted a video on YouTube of himself calling for Elton John's death has been arrested for making terroristic threats.Atlanta Police Sgt. Curtis Dav...

A World War II-era plane crashed Thursday while attempting to land at a small airport in suburban Phoenix, killing the pilot and starting at least one hangar on fire, autho...

Officials have broken ground on a New York City development project including a $1 billion arena for the New Jersey Nets basketball team amid hollers and whistles of the pr...

Voter registration forms are now available nationally in five Asian languages.The U.S. Election Assistance Commission released the forms on its Web site Thursday in ...

Aviation officials say bird strikes forced emergency landings by two passenger jets shortly after takeoff on consecutive days at Northeastern airports.Officials say ...

A 12-year-old circus zebra that caused a stir when he escaped and ran through downtown Atlanta last month has been euthanized.A statement posted on Ringling Bros. an...

Police say a national traffic safety agency is sending inspectors to suburban New York City to look at a wrecked Toyota Prius (PREE'-uhs) that its driver said accelerated o...

Amid concerns over a conflict of interest and just two days after a poll showed the public opposed his investigation into two scandals involving Gov. David Paterson, Attorn...

The community organizing group ACORN has agreed to give up its Ohio business license and not return under another name, as it has in other states, under a settlement struck...

A jury convicted a trucker of first-degree murder Thursday in the shootings of an abortion protester and a businessman in a small Michigan community, rejecting claims that ...

Ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich's attorneys asked a federal judge Thursday to postpone his corruption trial, saying so many uncertainties surround the charges it would be "play...

A former neighbor says a U.S. citizen who is being held as a terrorist in Yemen and is accused of a hospital shootout there moved to the Middle East about two years ago.US police departments seeking more bilingual cops, Colleen Long

Police departments across the country are stepping up efforts to recruit officers who can speak more than one language, in some cases offering raises or even sending cops a...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says it will consider ways the states can address rising levels of carbon dioxide in oceans.The agency on Thursday settled a...

The community organizing group ACORN has settled a lawsuit by agreeing to give up its Ohio business license and not return under another name.ACORN was sued by the l...

Police said a man did more than take a pickup for a spin during a test drive this week. Red Star Auto of Lincoln reported a pickup had been stolen Tuesday night or early We...

Kingsport Police have filed a 10th DUI charge against a driver who was going about 20 miles per hour on Interstate 26 and weaving. The Kingsport Times -News reported that t...

A federal appeals court in San Francisco upheld the use of the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance and "In God We Trust" on U.S. currency, rejecting arguments on ...

Devotees of a man claiming to practice a traditional African religion said they had to ingest the mucus of a Giant African Snail that sickened them. Federal authorities in ...

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is planning an announcement about his investigation of Gov. David Paterson, the governor's state police security detail and some of h...

Federal safety regulators recalled a line of holiday-themed bracelets Thursday, expanding their effort to purge children's jewelry boxes and store shelves of items containi...

An Ohio State janitor who shot two supervisors in a campus maintenance shop before killing himself left behind a brief handwritten note directed to a woman named Donna that...

Doctors, nurses and other health care workers are tapping into their inner Tolstoys to better connect with patients.With increasing regularity, they're meeting in mo...

The former president of New Orleans' school board has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for her role in a bribery scheme involving a brother of former U.S. Rep....

He was raised in New Jersey, where he was on the high school wrestling team and earned a black belt in karate. Nearly a decade later, Sharif Mobley is under arrest in Yemen...

Tim Holland, a world backgammon champion who was one of the most prominent competitors in the game's modern heyday, has died. He was 79.Holland died Wednesday of emp...

A lockdown has ended at Minneapolis Public Schools after police say a threat made on a social networking site turned out to be not credible.The district started Wedn...

A homemade bomb placed outside a store in northwestern Pakistan where locals watch movies exploded Thursday, killing four people, including a child, said officials.T...

Repressive regimes have stepped up efforts to censor the Internet and jail dissidents. That's what Reporters Without Borders says in a study released Thursday.The gr...

An 18-year-old Mississippi lesbian student whose school district canceled her senior prom rather than allow her to escort her girlfriend and wear a tuxedo said she got some...

It's a Hollywood cliffhanger, in more ways than one.The Trust for Public Land said Thursday it's about $3 million away from the $12.5 million it needs to buy and pre...

A woman whose car plunged off a bridge into the murky Los Angeles River was fighting for her life Thursday after being submerged for nearly a half-hour until divers rescued...

The head of a troubled Rhode Island school that fired all its teachers has agreed to use a mediator in upcoming negotiations with the teachers' union.The announcemen...

A Massachusetts sporting club is donating $10,000 to children's charities as part of a deal settling criminal charges in the death of an 8-year-old boy who accidentally sho...

Mexican drug cartels are infiltrating federal law enforcement agencies along the southwest border and those charged with weeding them out say they don't have the money to c...

Opponents of the massive Atlantic Yards development project in Brooklyn are protesting the official groundbreaking ceremony.They held a mock funeral Thursday "to bur...

Florida water managers have approved a contract extension for a bold plan to buy land from the nation's largest cane sugar producer for Everglades restoration.The bo...

Kansas City school officials promised Thursday to shut down nearly half the district's schools by the start of classes in the fall without offering details of how they inte...

The ex-campaign manager for former U.S. Rep. Chris Shays pleaded guilty Thursday to tax evasion and to taking more than $250,000 in campaign money for car repairs, limousin...

Kansas City's school superintendent said Thursday the plan to shutter nearly half the district's schools, while "painful," will move forward quickly so that all the closure...

The pilot of a US Airways jet reported a bird strike and an engine problem shortly after takeoff from an upstate New York airport Thursday, forcing the plane to turn back a...

California authorities say a doctor's son who was sought for questioning in his mother's killing has been arrested in Arizona.San Deigo County Sheriff's Lt. Dennis B...

Federal regulators are recalling more children's jewelry due to high levels of the toxic metal cadmium.This time it's charm bracelets with a "Rudolph the Red-Nosed R...

Facing a phalanx of angry military spouses, the Defense Department said Thursday it will resume payments for college courses and job training for spouses who had already ap...

NYC reaches settlement with thousands of ground zero responders over health claims....

A passenger jet bound for Charlotte, N.C., has made an emergency landing at an upstate New York airport after the pilot reported a bird strike shortly after takeoff....

Minneapolis Public Schools is on lockdown for the second day after a threat was made on a social networking site.The district will keep its 32,000 students indoors o...

A stranger followed a woman into a New York City bar restroom after she rejected his advances early Thursday, savagely beat her in a toilet stall and perhaps tried to sexua...

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing Idaho prison officials and a major private prison company for more than $155 million over high levels of inmate violence at the ...

California salmon fishermen may not get much, if any, time on the ocean this year, while their counterparts in Washington and Oregon would fare better because salmon are mo...

Workers are getting ready to reopen Interstate 70 in western Colorado, three days after a rock slide tore gaping holes in an elevated section and littered the highway with ...

Police say a New York woman who claimed her Toyota Prius accelerated on its own was on her way to have its gas pedal checked at the time of the accident.Harrison pol...

The University of Alabama in Huntsville has fired the professor accused of shooting six co-workers, killing three.University spokesman Ray Garner confirmed Thursday ...

The animal rights group PETA is offering to help the cash-strapped city of Colorado Springs by paying to put trash cans back in parks — on one condition. The cans have to...

Virginia Tech police are investigating new threats of another mass shooting at the university in online YouTube postings.Police say in an e-mail sent to faculty and ...

The office of a congresswoman who is the mother of Detroit ex-Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick says she's not a target of a federal investigation and will cooperate with a grand jury...

Talks have started over the future of a troubled Rhode Island high school where all the teachers were fired to improve student performance.The closed-door meeting Th...

A US Airways jet bound for Charlotte, N.C., has made an emergency landing at an upstate New York airport after the pilot reported a bird strike shortly after takeoff.Wis. high court sides with dealer in Volvo dispute

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has sided with a truck dealership in a dispute with a major manufacturer of semitrailers.The court on Thursday upheld an administrative l...

An Ohio woman has been ticketed in an accident captured in dramatic video that showed a police officer flipping over a guardrail.Brooklyn Heights police in suburban ...

The Louisiana Municipal Police Employees Retirement System wants a federal judge in Pittsburgh to stop FirstEnergy's proposed $4.7 billion takeover of the western Pennsylva...

A groundbreaking ceremony is set for the long-delayed Brooklyn development that includes a new arena for the New Jersey Nets.The $1 billion arena was announced in 20...

A second former New Orleans police officer pleaded guilty Thursday to covering up the deadly shooting of unarmed residents after Hurricane Katrina, with a judge calling the...

Kansas City School Superintendent John Covington says the decision to close almost half the district's schools was difficult and painful but "unquestionably the right thing...

Authorities say one person was killed in the tornadoes that struck parts of Arkansas.Cleburne County Sheriff Marty Moss said Thursday that one person died, but he de...

The FBI is investigating the case of an alleged al-Qaida member raised in New Jersey who is accused of trying to shoot his way out of a hospital in Yemen.FBI spokesm...

The University of Alabama in Huntsville has fired the professor accused of shooting six co-workers, killing three.UAH spokesman Ray Garner confirmed Wednesday that b...

Police say they're investigating the death of a 44-year-old New York man who died after a sheriff's deputy used a stun gun to subdue him.Police responded to a domest...

A northern Mississippi school district will not be hosting a high school prom this spring after a lesbian student sought to attend with her girlfriend and wear a tuxedo.Pa. suspect: Caretaker by day, 'Jihad Jane' online, Maryclaire Dale

Colleen LaRose spent long days caring for her boyfriend's father in a second-floor apartment in Pennsburg, a small town north of Philadelphia.But online, federal aut...

A 7-year-old boy who called 911 from a locked bathroom while armed robbers threatened his parents hugged and high-fived on Wednesday the sheriff's dispatcher who took his c...

Two Marine aviators aboard a flaming F/A-18D reacted quickly enough to slow their jet so they could safely eject over the Atlantic Ocean, their commander said Thursday....

The campaign manager for former U.S. Rep. Chris Shays is expected to plead guilty to charges of embezzling campaign funds.Michael Sohn, of Fairfield, Conn., is sched...

Prosecutors said convicted serial killer Rodney Alcala used his camera to gain the trust of young women and now they fear photographs he snapped decades ago could contain i...

Two off-duty Pennsylvania law enforcement officers were with Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger at the Georgia nightclub where a woman accused him of sexual...

Unsettling weather activity was forecast to continue to develop throughout the Mid- and Eastern U.S. on Thursday.The strong low that was once centered over the Centr...

The Florida Highway Patrol was flooded with e-mails criticizing their handling of the investigation of the crash involving golfer Tiger Woods that led to him admitting to e...

Wildlife officials lauded Washington's "holistic approach" to conservation in Hawaii after the Obama administration declared 48 species as endangered and announced plans to...

Groups pushing for robust Hispanic participation in the 2010 census are enlisting a new corps of foot-soldiers in their battle to reach that hard-to-count demographic: tech...

A New Jersey man with apocalyptic visions is accused of years of terrorizing his family, raping his five daughters and impregnating three, beating his children with wooden ...

Shortly after entering Congress in 1993, Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan withstood President Bill Clinton's charm offensive and voted against free-trade legislation — an ear...

Facing potential bankruptcy, the board that governs the once flush-with-cash Kansas City school district is taking the unusual and contentious step of shuttering almost hal...

Georgia's public defender system is still trying to recover its financial footing five years after a courthouse gunman racked up a $3 million taxpayer-funded defense tab on...

Democrats claimed momentum Wednesday in their drive to enact the sweeping health care legislation sought by President Barack Obama, citing near agreement on crucial issues ...

Two fugitive teenagers wanted in the 2009 killing of a 16-year-old boy have been found in Mexico and returned to authorities in Riverside County after a four-month manhunt....

Tornadoes have struck parts of Arkansas, injuring four people and destroying a handful of homes.Emergency Management spokeswoman Renee Preslar says three people suff...