WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will press a politically-divided Congress to approve more tax increases and fewer spending cuts during a State of the Union address focused on stabilizing the...

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department is not extending some housing benefits to same-sex partners of service members even though it legally could because the complex issue requires more review and...

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Thousands of pine seedlings grown at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at the University of Texas are being packed up and shipped for planting in Bastrop County. There,...

The number of Americans seeking unemployment aid fell last week to a level consistent with steady job gains. The Labor Department said weekly applications dropped 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 366,000. Here...

KAMPALA, Uganda — Representatives of the Congolese government and the M23 rebels signed a preliminary agreement in which both parties accepted responsibility for the failure of an earlier peace deal,...

IRVING— Caught in an ideological crossfire, the Boy Scouts of America is delaying until May a vote on whether to ease its policy of excluding gays as Scouts and adult leaders. Any eventual decision...

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — Two of the Great Lakes have hit their lowest water levels ever recorded, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Tuesday, capping more than a decade of below-normal rain and...

NABLUS, West Bank — A Palestinian fertility doctor claimed Wednesday that he has used prisoners’ sperm smuggled out of Israeli jails to help their wives have babies, and that five women have...

LONDON — The discovery of King Richard III under a parking lot in the English city of Leicester thrilled history buffs around the world. But the news meant a winter of discontent for the rival city...

NEW YORK — Coke Wisdom O’Neal looked at the soggy, stained and discolored photographs strewn about his Brooklyn studio by the salty floodwaters of Superstorm Sandy, sure there was nothing he...

Slumping personal computer maker Dell is bowing out of the stock market in a $24.4 billion buyout that represents the largest deal of its kind since the Great Recession dried up the financing for such...

KILLEEN, Texas (AP) — Officials with the Texas A&M Forest Service and the Army's Fort Hood have reached agreement on a plan to accelerate wildfire response. Under the deal announced...

LONDON — In her first video statement since she was nearly killed, a Pakistani schoolgirl shot by the Taliban remained defiant in arguing for girls’ education, saying Monday she would keep...

NEW ORLEANS — Who turned out the lights? The day after the 34-minute blackout at the Super Bowl, the exact cause was unclear, although a couple of potential culprits had been ruled out. It...

MINNEAPOLIS — President Barack Obama declared Monday on his first trip outside Washington to promote gun control that a consensus is emerging for universal background checks for purchasers, although...

TORONTO — Canada started phasing out its penny, the nuisance coins that clutter dressers and cost more than their one-cent value to produce. The Royal Canadian Mint on Monday officially ended...

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said emphatically Saturday that the Boy Scouts of America shouldn’t soften its strict no-gays membership policy and dismissed the idea of bending the organization to the whims...

ATHENS, Greece — Protesters forced their way into a government building in Greece’s latest anti-austerity protests Wednesday, reaching just outside a minister’s office before being expelled...

CHICAGO — A 15-year-old girl who performed in President Barack Obama’s inauguration festivities is the latest face on the ever-increasing homicide toll in the president’s hometown, killed...

TUSTIN, Calif. — The massive blimp-like aircraft flies but just barely, hovering only a dozen feet off a military hangar floor during flight testings. Still, the fact that the hulking 230-foot-long...

GUATEMALA CITY — A former U.S.-backed dictator who presided over one of the bloodiest periods of Guatemala’s civil war will stand trial on charges he ordered the murder, torture and...

MEXICO CITY — An order of Roman Catholic priests in Mexico has produced a video urging relatives of drug cartel victims to adopt a Christ-like forgiveness by pardoning even the killers, hitting a...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands — The Netherlands’ Queen Beatrix announced Monday that she is ending her reign after 33 years and passing the crown to her eldest son, who has long been groomed to be...

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — A Guantanamo Bay prisoner charged in the 9/11 attacks fired one of his military attorneys Monday in an apparent sign of frustration and distrust of his Pentagon-appointed...

Former UT All-American and NFL kicker and punter Russell Erxleben, who previously served a federal prison sentence for securities fraud, was arrested Thursday on new charges of running an illegal Ponzi...

FORT WORTH — The new judge in the Fort Hood shooting rampage case faces a controversial decision next week: whether to spare Maj. Nidal Hasan a possible death sentence and let him plead guilty in...

SANAA, Yemen — Yemeni officials say a U.S. drone strike on a car outside the capital of Sanaa has killed at least seven suspected al-Qaida militants. The officials say the drone attack took place...

NEW YORK — A computer virus that spread to more than a million computers worldwide, and produced at least $50 million in illegal profits or losses to victims should be a “wake-up call”...

RABAT, Morocco — Nearly a year after Morocco was shocked by the suicide of a 16-year-old girl who was forced to marry her alleged rapist, the government has announced plans to change the penal code...

WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is lifting its ban on women serving in combat, opening hundreds of thousands of front-line positions and potentially elite commando jobs after generations of limits on their...

HOUSTON (AP) — A Houston-area community college went into lockdown Tuesday afternoon amid reports of a shooter on campus. Lone Star College System issued an alert on its website Tuesday telling...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Retired Cardinal Roger Mahony and other top Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles officials maneuvered behind the scenes to shield molester priests, provide damage control...

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s state-run news agency says a court has charged nine lawyers, including prominent human rights defenders, with membership in an outlawed leftist militant group...

MIDDLETOWN, Ohio (AP) — Authorities say a southwest Ohio highway pileup involving as many as 85 vehicles has left one person dead. The Interstate 275 crash was one of four pileups that snared...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — The New Mexico teenager accused of fatally shooting his parents and three younger siblings told police he had been having homicidal and suicidal thoughts. According to...

LONDON (AP) — British police have launched an official probe into claims that senior politicians had links to a pedophile gang during the 1980s. Scotland Yard says the investigation is looking...

KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) — The U.N. and African Union peacekeeping force in Sudan says more than 100 people have been killed and other 70,000 displaced from their homes because of recent tribal warfare...

TRIPOLI, Libya (AP) — The FBI director met with top Libyan officials on Thursday to discuss the probe into last year’s killing of the U.S. ambassador in Benghazi where authorities are planning...

CHICAGO (AP) — Authorities plan to exhume the body of a Chicago businessman Friday in hopes of learning exactly how he ingested a lethal dose of cyanide. Urooj (oo-ROOJ’) Khan died in July...

SAO PAULO — Want to make your ex-girlfriend jealous? Need to show your friends you are in a serious relationship when you aren’t? A Brazilian website says it has the answer: fake girlfriends. NamoroFake.com.br...

TOKYO — Japan’s two biggest airlines grounded all their Boeing 787 aircraft for safety checks Wednesday after one was forced to make an emergency landing in the latest blow for the new jet. All...

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — The mother of a Colorado woman reported missing while on a private river trip at the Grand Canyon said Wednesday that she believes her daughter fell into the water and is dead. Kaitlin...

LONDON — A helicopter crashed into a crane and fell on a crowded street in central London during rush hour Wednesday, sending flames and black plumes of smoke into the air. The pilot and one person...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA is teaming up with the European Space Agency to get astronauts beyond Earth’s orbit. Europe will provide the propulsion and power compartment for NASA’s...

JERUSALEM — Israel’s national museum said Tuesday it will open what it calls the world’s first exhibition devoted to the architectural legacy of biblical King Herod, the Jewish proxy...

BEIJING — People refused to venture outdoors and buildings disappeared into Beijing’s murky skyline on Sunday as the air quality in China’s notoriously polluted capital went off the index. The...

MOSCOW — Thousands of people marched through Moscow on Sunday to protest Russia’s new law banning Americans from adopting Russian children, a far bigger number than expected in a sign that...

  SALT LAKE CITY — A plane carrying three Utah men crashed shortly after takeoff in Texas Saturday, killing all three aboard, authorities said. The Piper PA-46 had taken off from an airport...

CAIRO — A Cairo appeals court on Sunday overturned Hosni Mubarak’s life sentence and ordered a retrial of the former Egyptian president for failing to prevent the killing of hundreds of protesters...