Republican presidential candidate John McCain, ridiculing Barack Obama for "the audacity of hopelessness" in his policies on Iraq, said Friday that the entire Middle East could have plunged into war had U.S. troops been...

An aide to Sen. Barack Obama said Friday the Democratic presidential contender believed he could visit wounded troops at a military hospital in Germany without involving them in a campaign controversy and scrapped his...

The long wait is finally over for satellite radio customers as FCC approves merger in 3-2 vote. ...

!!-- pobj:CODEN101-0725081521 -->!!-- pobj:LON813-0725081646 -->There's something familiar about this stage of the presidential campaign. A candidate running on inevitability. A candidate running on experience. A...

Wisconsin Democrats on Friday ousted a delegate to their national convention for saying she would vote for Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain in November. Embarrassed by a defection in their ranks, the...

!!-- pobj:ILCHS503-0721081614 -->!!-- pobj:CX102-0317080900 -->A man who says he cooperated with police and wore a wire during conversations with a former police sergeant considered a suspect in his wife's disappearance...

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Saturday that a lingering nuclear dispute between the United States and New Zealand ought to be overcome to focus on a new era of cooperation in the Pacific and elsewhere. Rice...

A majority of members of the Federal Communications Commission have cast votes in favor of punishing Comcast Corp. for blocking subscribers' Internet traffic, an agency official said Friday. Comcast, the nation's...

Federal regulators formally approved the merger of the nation's only two satellite radio operators Friday, ending a 16-month-long drama closely watched by Washington and Wall Street. Sirius Satellite Radio Inc.'s $3.3...

Richard Egbert BOSTON (AP) _ Richard Egbert, the prominent New England criminal defense lawyer whose famous clients included Massachusetts House Speaker Thomas Finneran and Providence Mayor Vincent "Buddy" Cianci, has...

A Texas woman wanted by the FBI for international parental kidnapping has been awarded asylum in Costa Rica and cannot be extradited to the United States. Costa Rican court on Friday ordered the release of former Fort...

The 346 passengers were cruising at 29,000 feet Friday when an explosive bang shook the Qantas jumbo jet. The plane descended rapidly. Oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling as debris flew through the cabin from a hole...

As of Friday, July 25, 2008, at least 488 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department....

As of Friday, July 25, 2008, at least 4,124 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes eight military civilians...

The deadline passed late Friday for Radovan Karadzic to lodge a formal appeal against his handover to the war crimes court in The Hague, Netherlands, with the ex-Bosnian Serb warlord's lawyer refusing to confirm that he...

California on Friday became the first state to ban trans fats from restaurant food, following several cities and major fast-food chains in erasing the notorious artery-clogger from menus. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger...

Ships began crawling up the Mississippi River at New Orleans in a tightly controlled procession Friday, two days after a massive oil spill shut down a stretch of one of the nation's most critical commercial arteries. ...

A lawyer for the maker of Bratz dolls sought a mistrial Friday in a copyright infringement case brought by Mattel Inc. after a juror was dismissed for allegedly making racial slurs. The federal judge in the closely...

After weeks of one negative report after another, the economy finally got some news Friday that wasn't half bad. Wall Street, which suffered a stomach-churning drop Thursday, managed a modest gain. Oil prices hit their...

General Electric Co. has announced a reorganization, saying the move will simplify the conglomerate and spur growth and efficiency. Chief Executive Officer Jeff Immelt says that GE, which owns businesses ranging from...

Halle Berry said a paparazzi went too far to get a shot of her infant daughter, alleging that the shooter trespassed on her private property and snapped them hanging out in the backyard. The Oscar-winning actress was...

Britney Spears and Kevin Federline finalized their child-custody settlement Friday, including a $5,000-per-month increase in child support for the pop singer's ex-husband. An attorney for Federline delivered the terms...

"Lost" fans can start expecting some answers. Writer-producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof said Friday that they know exactly how the ABC series will end. "We have 34 hours left for you guys to see _ seasons five...

The reality is, there won't be an Emmy host this year _ there will be five. The reality-TV hosts nominated in the new category that honors their work will preside over the show, ABC and The Academy of Television Arts...

Zack Snyder is standing inside a 9,000-pound, tanklike metal pod in the center of the crowded Comic-Con floor. He nonchalantly points out the features of the Owl Ship, a real-life version of the flying vehicle from the...

Adrian Gonzalez homered to help the San Diego Padres earn a 6-5 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates, who traded two of their best players shortly after the game started Friday night. The Pirates pulled Xavier Nady after...

Cliff Lee stayed on pace to become Cleveland's first 20-game winner in 34 years and the Indians ended an eight-game losing streak inside the AL Central with a 5-4 win over Minnesota on Friday night. The Twins lost...

Chez Reavie left Mike Weir and the rest of the Canadian Open contenders behind on a long, sunny day at soggy Glen Abbey. Reavie was 13 under for 33 holes Friday after opening the tournament Thursday with three straight...

Michelle Wie is set to play against the men on the PGA Tour again, and doesn't care that some people think it's a bad idea. Wie will compete for the eighth time on the PGA Tour in next week's Legends Reno-Tahoe Open....

Minnesota Twins center fielder Carlos Gomez was immobilized and taken from the field on a cart after crashing into the padded wall while making a spectacular catch in the first inning of Friday night's game against the...

EDITOR'S NOTE: This column by Mike Licona of the North American Mission Board is the final column in a four-part series on the exclusivity of Christianity.ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)--In the first column in this series I said...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Fuge isn't just a hot weather event anymore.This December, LifeWay Christian Resources will debut Fuge Winter Camp at LifeWay Glorieta Conference Center near Santa Fe, N.M.Fuge Winter Camp is...

GLORIETA, N.M. (BP)--The Centrifuge camp began with a bang -- literally.Thunder shook the mountains surrounding the LifeWay Glorieta Conference Center near Santa Fe, N.M., as students, chaperones and leaders ventured...

WASHINGTON (BP)--Four television ministries still have refused to comply fully with a U.S. Senate committee's probe into their financial records nearly nine months after first being asked.The ministries of Kenneth...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--It's no secret that the homosexual community forms part of Barack Obama's base, and a new Harris Interactive poll shows the presumptive Democratic nominee holding a 46-point lead over Republican...

When there's an urgent need to trace fruits and vegetables in a crisis like the salmonella outbreak, a lot of the pieces for a rapid-response system already exist. But nobody has quite figured out how to put them...

After three surgeries, Judy Sherer still had chronic pain in her left shoulder. She'd lost faith in her doctors, and in despair tried a new health benefit offered by her employer. The service, Health Advocate, is a...

More than 1,000 people died over two years from an illegal version of the painkiller fentanyl, the government reported Thursday in its first national tally of those deaths. The spike of overdoses seems to have ended,...

Scientists will have to take "enormous intellectual leaps" to develop an AIDS vaccine in the coming years, say researchers clearly frustrated by the failure of a once-promising shot. The researchers, including a top...

Scientists will have to take "enormous intellectual leaps" to develop an AIDS vaccine in the coming years, say researchers clearly frustrated by the failure of a once-promising shot. The researchers, including a top...

Italian prosecutors have ended their investigation of four Google Inc. executives over a video uploaded onto Google's Italian site that showed a disabled youth being abused, news reports said Friday. The ANSA and Apcom...

AOL is shutting three data-storage services, including one of the Internet's earliest photo-sharing sites, as it seeks to cut costs and focus resources on its advertising opportunities. AOL Pictures, the year-old...

Nokia Corp., Motorola Inc. and other handset makers rose along with the broader market Friday following Samsung Electronics' report that its mobile phone sales rose 22 percent in the second quarter. Samsung's handset...

With the old gas-guzzler in the garage, you've got your bicycle ready and your sneakers laced up. Now all you need is a map of the quickest, safest routes for riding around town. Well, not so fast. As more commuters...

Bruce R. Chizen, the former chief executive of Adobe Systems Inc., has been named to an expanded board of another software company, Oracle Corp. Chizen, 52, who stepped down as Adobe CEO last year "to take a break"...

The remnants of Hurricane Dolly were expected to continue flooding southern Texas on Friday and possibly spawn tornadoes, while storms were forecast in the Plains, the Midwest, the Southwest, the Southeast and New...

The remnants of Hurricane Dolly were dumping heavy rain over southern Texas on Thursday, a day after making landfall, then weakening to a tropical storm. Flooding concerns persisted as Dolly crept across the state. A...

Hurricane Dolly was expected to make landfall Wednesday near the Texas-Mexico border, bringing up to 15 inches of rain to southern Texas. Flooding was anticipated, especially along the coast, because of the heavy rain...

A cold front hovering over the Ohio Valley early Tuesday was expected to trigger showers and thunderstorms from the Central Plains to New England, while Tropical Storm Dolly threatened Texas. Scattered showers, strong...

Tropical storms Dolly and Cristobal were to continue spinning away in the Atlantic Basin on Monday. Cristobal was to pull away from the North Carolina coastline in the morning, but showers and gusty winds were to last...