A convicted rapist accused of killing a 16-year-old girl he met online pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder Wednesday, several days after authorities found the girl's body in a blue, plastic barrel in western...More >>
President Barack Obama on Wednesday proposed a lower corporate tax rate and an end to dozens of loopholes he said helps U.S. companies move jobs and profits overseas. "It's not right and it needs to change," he said.More >>
The superintendent of the West Virginia coal mine where an explosion killed 29 men was charged Wednesday with conspiracy to defraud the federal government, becoming the highest-ranking employee to face criminal prosecution...More >>
Methamphetamine lab seizures rose nationally again in 2011, further evidence the powerfully addictive and dangerous drug is maintaining a tight grip on the nation's heartland, according to an Associated Press survey of...More >>
By The Associated Press A comparison of corporate tax proposals by President Barack Obama, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., and GOP presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, Rick...More >>
Police on Wednesday were investigating the possibility that a love triangle might have motivated a 73-year-old man to fatally shoot a 62-year-old victim outside the offices of a utility district where the model airplane...More >>
A federal jury of eight men and four women is set to begin hearing graphic testimony in the case of a New Hampshire woman charged with lying about her role in the 1994 Rwanda genocide.More >>
A Georgia prosecutor told jurors Wednesday that a former attorney for gun manufacturer Glock Inc. was essentially running the company's U.S. operations and used his position to steal millions from his employer.More >>
A British man has been sentenced to probation for helping a former Halliburton Co. subsidiary steer massive bribes to Nigerian officials to win more than $6 billion in construction contracts.More >>
A group of protesters affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement plans to elect 876 "delegates" from around the country and hold a national "general assembly" in Philadelphia over the Fourth of July as part of ongoing...More >>
Federal officials say another 10 states are getting a total of $230 million to set up new health insurance markets under President Barack Obama's overhaul.More >>
A French photojournalist and a prominent American war correspondent working for a British newspaper were killed Wednesday as Syrian forces intensely shelled the opposition stronghold of Homs.More >>
By ANN M. JOB For The Associated Press Forget about retro, nostalgia stuff. The 2012 Dodge Charger is an impressive, large, rear-wheel drive sedan for today's buyers who want to stand out from the crowd.More >>
The New York Police Department is facing fresh criticism about its spying on Muslims, this time from the mayor in Newark, where Muslims were put under surveillance and cataloged in NYPD files.More >>
The wife of former Prime Minister Tony Blair is suing Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper company over phone hacking, her lawyer said Wednesdsay.More >>
A spokesman for the international military force in Afghanistan says findings from an investigation into the burning of Muslim holy books at a NATO base may come out as early as Wednesday.More >>
The Supreme Court seems divided on whether to allow an Arkansas man to be retried on murder charges even though a jury forewoman said in open court that they were unanimously against finding him guilty.More >>
The Supreme Court said Wednesday that California police officers cannot be sued because they used a warrant that may have been defective to search a woman's house.More >>
The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Wednesday to authorize an increase in the African Union force in Somalia from 12,000 to about 17,700 and expand its areas of operation in an effort to intensify pressure on...More >>
A man from Michigan's Upper Peninsula accused of buying and hiding more than 4,000 pounds of explosives has reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors.More >>
Authorities in upstate New York are investigating the death of an Amtrak passenger apparently dragged by a train after being kicked off for drunkenness.More >>
Jurors in the murder trial of a former University of Virginia lacrosse player began deliberating Wednesday whether he battered his ex-girlfriend to death in a drunken, jealous rage or if his intent to talk with her spiraled...More >>
A packed train slammed into the end of the line in Buenos Aires' busy Once station Wednesday, killing 49 people and injuring hundreds of morning commuters as passenger cars crumpled behind the engine. It was...More >>
Just two dozen ultra-wealthy donors are behind a surge of million-dollar contributions to the new breed of political committees during the presidential campaign.More >>
A gunman shot two of his sisters and their husbands inside a Korean health spa in an Atlanta suburb and then killed himself, police said Wednesday.More >>
The Supreme Court sided with a power company Wednesday in a dispute with Montana over who owns the riverbeds beneath 10 dams sitting on three Montana rivers.More >>
A North Carolina man recently convicted in a homegrown terrorism plot faces new charges that he attempted to hire a hit man to behead three witnesses who testified against him.More >>
Afghan President Hamid Karzai appealed for calm Wednesday after clashes in several cities between Afghan security forces and protesters furious over the burning of Muslim holy books at a U.S. military base left seven people...More >>
Divers searching the capsized Costa Concordia cruise ship off a Tuscan island found eight bodies Wednesday on one of the passenger decks, including that of a missing 5-year-old Italian girl, authorities said.More >>
Federal regulators said Tuesday that they've approved new suppliers for two crucial cancer drugs, easing critical shortages - at least for the time being - that have left patients and parents frightened about missing...More >>
President Barack Obama heralded a new national black history museum as "not just a record of tragedy, but a celebration of life" as he marked Wednesday's groundbreaking of the long-sought-after museum on the National...More >>
President Hugo Chavez has raised serious doubts about whether he'll have the stamina for a successful re-election bid, revealing that he needs to return to Cuba to have a lesion removed that is probably malignant.More >>
Americans living and working in New Jersey's largest city were subjected to surveillance as part of the New York Police Department's effort to build databases of where Muslims work, shop and pray. The operation in...More >>
Julio Gerena is in a wheelchair, his long career in the U.S. Navy and Army forever behind him. But the 52-year-old recaptured some of the old military camaraderie while peeling potatoes and chopping cilantro in a crowded...More >>
Leaders of an American Indian tribe in South Dakota who are suing beer makers, distributors and retailers are now asking a judge to limit alcohol sales in a tiny Nebraska town that borders their reservation.More >>
She was instantly recognizable for the eye patch that hid a shrapnel injury - a testament to Marie Colvin's courage, which took her behind the front lines of the world's deadliest conflicts to write about the...More >>
A former police director of New Jersey's largest city says no local officers were used in a spying operation that monitored and catalogued his city's Muslim neighborhoods.More >>
Undaunted by ridicule from the leader of his own party, an Indiana lawmaker is standing by his allegations that the Girl Scouts is a radical organization that promotes abortions and homosexuality.More >>
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is trying to ramp up diplomatic efforts against Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime on a trip to North Africa this week, as some countries begin to explore the possibility of...More >>
By PABLO GORONDI Associated Press Oil prices slipped below $106 a barrel on Wednesday as concerns about the debt crisis in Europe were countered by the threat of conflicts over Iran's nuclear program...More >>
Attorneys for country duo Sugarland said concertgoers were at least partly to blame for injuries suffered in a stage collapse, drawing a sharp reaction from fans Tuesday and prompting the band's manager to issue a...More >>
Jury deliberations are under way in the trial of a former University of Virginia lacrosse player charged in the slaying of his former girlfriend in a drunken rage.More >>
A substitute teacher in the nation's second-largest school district was investigated three times for sexual misconduct with students before he quit in 2007 to work for a neighboring district.More >>
The U.S. and North Korea reopen nuclear talks Thursday that will provide a glimpse into where Pyongyang's opaque government is heading after Kim Jong Il's death and test its readiness to dismantle nuclear programs...More >>
Americans living and working in New Jersey's largest city were subjected to surveillance as part of the New York Police Department's effort to build databases of where Muslims work, shop and pray. The operation in...More >>
A former Boston-area woman's parents testified in a closed inquest two years ago that she accidentally shot her brother to death in their home in 1986, court records show.More >>
Police say a 5-year-old boy in Ohio brought an unloaded handgun to the day care he attends after finding it in the grass at his apartment complex.More >>
A Virginia man charged following a yearlong FBI investigation with plotting a suicide bombing inside the U.S. Capitol was expected to make a second court appearance Wednesday.More >>
A New York City jury has awarded a former Playboy playmate $1.2 million for injuries she suffered during a 2006 scuffle with police based on a taxi driver's false accusation that she was armed and dangerous.More >>
Officers on horseback cleared Bourbon Street early Wednesday, declaring an end to Carnival 2012 in New Orleans as Mardi Gras revelers began to prepare for the beginning of Lent, the period of fasting and repentance before...More >>
President Barack Obama is proposing to cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent and wants an even lower effective rate for manufacturers, a senior administration official says, as the White House lays down an...More >>
Police were interviewing witnesses at a spa outside Atlanta where a gunman opened fire, killing five people in what authorities described as a murder-suicide.More >>
The U.N. nuclear agency acknowledged renewed failure Wednesday after a trip to probe suspicions of covert Iranian nuclear weapons work, in a statement issued just hours after an Iranian general warned of a pre-emptive strike...More >>
Leaving nothing to chance, the U.S. military is making sure the transfer of 17 tons of shipwreck treasure to Spain later this week is handled safely.More >>
By AMY TAXIN and ELLIOT SPAGAT Associated Press Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Perry Woo earned praise for his courage and quick thinking after he fatally shot a colleague who opened fire on a...More >>
Troy James Knapp is a wanted man, a mountain recluse authorities say is responsible for more than two dozen cabin burglaries in the remote southern Utah wilderness. He's considered armed and dangerous, a ticking time...More >>
Readily available, easy-to-use software can encrypt a computer hard drive so thoroughly it would take years for a hacker to break in. But that seems to be no impediment for government prosecutors, who have obtained an order...More >>
California health officials became alarmed when a 39-year-old Mexican-American woman in Alameda County was diagnosed with mercury poisoning, giving her headaches, numbness, depression and forgetfulness.More >>
A trial in San Diego will determine whether two alleged members of a violent Mexican drug gang are guilty of murder. A prosecutor says two victims had their bodies dissolved in acid.More >>
Same-sex couples in California will have to wait a while to find out if they have regained the right to get married, after the backers of the state's gay marriage ban petitioned a federal appeals court to review a split...More >>
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush sidestepped talk of presidential campaign politics to focus on business issues Tuesday during a speech at the Kansas Chamber of Commerce's annual dinner.More >>
The president just couldn't say no: Mick Jagger held out a microphone almost by way of command, and soon Barack Obama was belting out the blues with the best of them.More >>
Attorneys for the suspect in the Tucson shooting that wounded Rep. Gabrielle Giffords are objecting to prosecutors' receiving a prison psychologist's personal notes on their client.More >>
An Ohio woman who compared animal-welfare work to the liberation of World War II concentration camps has been charged with soliciting a hit man to fatally shoot or slit the throat of a random fur-wearer, federal authorities...More >>
By The Associated Press Yale President Richard Levin condemned the New York Police Department's monitoring of Muslim student associations in a letter on Monday:More >>
Same-sex marriage was on hold in California after opponents petitioned a federal appeals court Tuesday to review a split decision by three of its judges that struck down a voter-approved measure that limited marriage to a...More >>
Three Texas men whom federal officials say were linked to a gun used in a U.S. agent's death in Mexico were sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty to weapons charges.More >>
By AMY TAXIN and ELLIOT SPAGAT Associated Press The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent believed to have fatally shot a colleague who opened fire on a supervisor has won acclaim for investigating sex...More >>
A California police department had no intent to deceive the public by releasing an old booking photo of a homeless man who died after a confrontation with officers or information about officers' potential injuries from...More >>
A state administrative judge has ordered the revocation of a Kansas doctor's license over her referrals of young patients to the late Dr. George Tiller for late-term abortions, concluding their care was "seriously...More >>
A woman shopping on a busy downtown El Paso street became the first victim of bullets flying across the border from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on Tuesday when she was hit in the calf and wounded, authorities said.More >>
Michael Rorrer said his great aunt once mentioned having comic books she would one day give him and his brother, but it was a passing remark made when they were boys and still into superheroes.More >>
The mother of a former U.S. Marine sentenced to death in Iran on a spying conviction has visited her son in an Iranian prison, a spokesman for the Michigan family said Tuesday.More >>
A Nebraska city's attempt to fight illegal immigration with a newly court-approved ordinance appears likely to be more of an inconvenience for legal residents than a deterrent to illegal immigrants.More >>
A phone scam in which callers in India posed as debt collectors bilked millions of dollars out of more than 10,000 U.S. residents by using threats of arrest or the loss of their jobs, U.S. authorities said Tuesday in what...More >>
An embattled Arizona sheriff said Tuesday that the state's top prosecutor has agreed to conduct a comprehensive independent investigation into allegations made against him and his office.More >>
The family of Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Shadid will hold a memorial service for the late journalist next month in his hometown of Oklahoma City.More >>
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Tuesday that President Barack Obama's administration has "fought against religion" and sought to substitute a "secular" agenda for one grounded in faith.More >>
A global coalition against censorship is needed to protect online journalists and bloggers who are being targeted by repressive governments, a leading advocacy group said Tuesday.More >>
Former Indiana U.S. Rep. Katie Hall, a key sponsor of the 1983 legislation that established a national holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., has died. She was 73.More >>
The mayor faced off with the president of Yale University on Tuesday over an effort by the city's police department to monitor Muslim student groups for any signs that their members harbored terrorist sympathies.More >>
Prosecutors urged jurors Tuesday to dismiss a murder defendant's assertions that an angel who looked like Olivia Newton-John ordered him to fatally shoot a co-worker's husband outside a preschool. They say Hemy...More >>
The reintroduction of Mexican gray wolves to a mountain range just south of the U.S.-Mexico border as part of an effort to re-establish the endangered species is off to a rocky start.More >>
A California woman was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after police say she drove the getaway car for her teenage son who allegedly stabbed a boy.More >>
The Fiesta Bowl's former top executive pleaded guilty Tuesday to a felony charge stemming from a political donations scandal that nearly jeopardized the bowl's role as a regular host of college football's...More >>
Portuguese workers issued a spontaneous "Ja chega!" - "That's enough!" - to the government, rejecting its appeal to stay at their jobs during Carnival, one of their most beloved holidays.More >>
She has been dubbed the "trailer park Mata Hari," an attractive ex-stripper recruited by the feds to befriend identical twin brothers accused of a white-supremacist bombing and to get them to admit to the crime.More >>
A federal judge is postponing a decision on Utah's immigration enforcement law until after the U.S. Supreme Court rules on a similar law in Arizona.More >>
A man charged with murdering his wife by drowning her during a 2003 honeymoon diving trip in Australia said he was done grieving her death by the time her funeral was being planned back home in Alabama, the woman's...More >>
The U.N. agency that fights drugs and crime estimated that cocaine trafficking is generating some $900 million annually in West and Central Africa as South American cartels use the shortest route to transport drugs to Europe.More >>
A construction crane collapsed and killed two workers because its money-hungry owner skimped on a vital repair job, prosecutors said Tuesday as the owner went on trial in a manslaughter case that his lawyers said...More >>
Some Southern Baptists worry that their denomination's name still carries the stigma of a 19th century split with northern Baptists over slavery. Others who fought hard to build the brand and its conservative theology...More >>
The city cannot go forward with a new policy requiring single people to prove they have no other options before they enter homeless shelters, a court ruled Tuesday.More >>
Top Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials debated the accuracy of public statements made by the agency's chairman about a pool holding spent fuel rods at a crippled Japan nuclear plant, newly released transcripts show.More >>
The eight children confined in a small, dark bedroom with a piece of plywood over the window included two 2-year-olds tied to a bed and a 5-year-old girl "in a restraint on a filthy mattress," the child welfare worker who...More >>
Fitzpatrick Manufacturing Co. is a high-tech job shop, crafting super-precise parts for machines used in everything from robotics to aerospace to oil exploration. Macomb Community College lies a few miles down the road in...More >>
Archer Daniels Midland Co. said Tuesday that it is firing 175 people at its headquarters in Illinois as part of a plan to cut what it now says will be 1,200 mostly salaried jobs across the company.More >>
A former teacher whose arrest sparked a scandal at an elementary school that led to the replacement of all of its teachers pleaded not guilty Tuesday to committing lewd acts with 23 children in his classroom.More >>
Before the death of Don Cornelius stirred pangs of "Soul Train" nostalgia in the American public, a group of black entrepreneurs already had begun working to revive Cornelius' creation and carry it beyond the continued...More >>
Sophisticated encryption software has become so readily available and so effective, it's surpassed the federal government's ability to seize computers and gather evidence in criminal cases.More >>
Federal labor officials say they found nine workplace violations at a candy repackaging and distribution facility owned by The Hershey Co. and operated by Exel Inc. where foreign student workers protested last summer.More >>
Federal labor officials announced Tuesday they found nine workplace violations at a candy repackaging and distribution facility owned by The Hershey Co. and operated by Exel Inc., the site of protests last summer by foreign...More >>
In an embarrassing setback, the Justice Department gave up Tuesday on its high-profile prosecution of nearly two dozen businessmen charged in the first undercover sting the government used to enforce a 35-year-old law...More >>
The jury pool for the trial of a former Rutgers University student accused of using a webcam to spy on his roommate's intimate encounter with another man was cut Tuesday after the judge reviewed answers from...More >>
A retired Massachusetts judge on Tuesday defended her decision to order a mentally ill woman to have an abortion and be sterilized against her wishes, and she blasted Boston University for rescinding a job offer after her...More >>
A surging Rick Santorum is making increasingly harsh remarks about President Barack Obama, questioning not just the president's competence but his motives and even his Christian values.More >>
The owner of a Pittsburgh-area animal shelter must stand trial on charges he stole more than $37,000 in state funds by telling a sleeping-dogs lie.More >>
A once-powerful Haitian drug lord imprisoned in the U.S. deserves half off his 27-year sentence because he provided key assistance in the convictions of at least a dozen other corrupt officials from his country and...More >>
The trial of a New Jersey bus driver charged with the deaths of four passengers in an upstate New York crash has opened with a defense lawyer blaming railroad and public officials for failing to fix a dangerously low...More >>
In early versions of a Feb. 20 story about a federal judge's ruling on a challenge to an illegal immigration law in Fremont, Neb., The Associated Press erroneously reported most of the law had been rejected by the court....More >>
When the leaders of this small Iowa city became desperate to land a new department store, they didn't have to look far: They lured one from the city next door, along with up to 100 jobs.More >>
The U.S. Marine Corps has discharged the lone Marine convicted in the 2005 killings of unarmed Iraqi civilians in the town of Haditha, a spokesman said Tuesday.More >>
Federal prosecutors in Miami say a once-powerful Haitian drug lord should get half off his 27-year prison sentence because he provided key assistance to prosecutors in a dozen other cases.More >>
The Supreme Court is setting an election-season review of racial preference in college admissions, agreeing Tuesday to consider new limits on the contentious issue of affirmative action programs.More >>
A Palestinian member of a violent Islamic militant group that advocates killing Israeli civilians agreed to end his 66-day hunger strike to protest his imprisonment without charge after reaching a deal with Israel that will...More >>
By The Associated Press As of Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2012, at least 1,771 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan as a result of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to an...More >>
An unmistakable dynamic is playing out in the money game among Republican presidential candidates: New "super" political action committees are growing more powerful than the campaigns they support.More >>
The Obama administration opened the door slightly Tuesday to international military assistance for Syria's rebels, with officials saying new tactics may have to be explored if President Bashar Assad continues to defy...More >>
A man angry that his girlfriend was trying to break up with him struck her with his car and repeatedly backed over her body, prosecutors said Tuesday in charging him with murder.More >>
Several alleged members of an upstate New York stolen goods ring that's blamed for the 2010 death of a comic book collector again entered not guilty pleas to federal murder and racketeering charges Tuesday after a grand...More >>
Food and water are running dangerously low in the besieged Syrian city of Homs, with frantic cries for help from residents amid government shelling that pounded rebel strongholds and killed at least 30 people Tuesday,...More >>
The U.S. apologized Tuesday for the burning of Muslim holy books that had been pulled from the shelves of a detention center library adjoining a major base in eastern Afghanistan because they contained extremist messages or...More >>
A Republican senator is blocking the appointment of a top Pentagon official on Asia policy in a dispute with President Barack Obama over sales of fighter jets to Taiwan.More >>
Chief Justice John Roberts has told Congress again that the Supreme Court doesn't plan to formally adopt rules that would bind it to the same code of conduct as other federal judges.More >>
A former Marine pleaded not guilty Tuesday to charges that he murdered six people in Southern California, including four homeless men and a friend's mother and brother.More >>
A 5-year-old girl whose mother is charged with drowning her sister and trying to kill her remained hospitalized on life support Tuesday morning until her organs can be harvested, authorities said.More >>
An appellate court ruled Tuesday that the families of two Guantanamo detainees who the government says hanged themselves in their cells cannot sue for damages in U.S. courts.More >>
The Supreme Court has added another 30 minutes to upcoming arguments over President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. The sessions now will span six hours over three days in late March.More >>
By The Associated Press Netflix has locked up the right to show "The Artist" and other movies from The Weinstein Co. on its Internet video service before the films are released to the leading pay-TV...More >>
It's winter, so Donna Robirds puts on two sweaters in the morning and keeps heavy blankets handy as she sets her thermostat low - 60 at night - and bundles up to keep her utility bill down.More >>
President Barack Obama has thanked German Chancellor Angela Merkel for her leadership in helping secure a Eurozone agreement to prevent a potentially disastrous fiscal default by Greece.More >>
A former aide to Mississippi Sen. Thad Cochran convicted in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal must spend 15 weekends in jail after getting kicked out of her halfway house for bringing in a steak knife.More >>
A Saudi man accused of trying to make a weapon of mass destruction and targeting former President George W. Bush's home in Dallas is mentally competent to stand trial, a federal judge in Texas ruled Tuesday.More >>
A 13-year-old boy who admitted raping a 5-year-old girl at a McDonald's play area in southwest Ohio has been sentenced to an inpatient treatment facility for at least six months.More >>
Relishing a political victory, President Barack Obama said Tuesday that Congress "did the right thing" by extending payroll tax cuts for millions of Americans. He urged lawmakers to push forward on more measures, from...More >>
The Army has removed the head of the Madigan Army Medical Center in Washington state during an investigation into whether soldiers had diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder reversed to reduce medical costs.More >>
Federal workers have become the go-to targets as Congress, and the White House, search for ways to lower the deficit, pay for tax cuts and put off looming reductions to defense spending.More >>
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is appointing the State Department's first chief economist as the Obama administration tries to fully integrate the agency into its attempts to promote domestic job growth.More >>
Just days after the 200th anniversary of a series of massive earthquakes in southeast Missouri, residents woke up Tuesday to a rumbling reminder that they live in one of the continent's most active seismic areas.More >>
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