Cheered by an enormous international crowd, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama on Thursday summoned Europeans and Americans together to "defeat terror and dry up the well of extremism that supports it" as...

The Secret Service has asked for an extra $9.5 million to cover unexpected costs of protecting the presidential candidates during what has turned into an historic year for the agency's campaign security job. Among...

Republican presidential candidate John McCain had his own German experience Thursday _ at a restaurant in Ohio. He asserted that he was happy to devote his time this week to touring the nation's heartland. "I'd love to...

Fire department spokesman says 3 wounded in shooting at Phoenix community college. ...

Calculated political ploy. Timely foreign outreach. A dash of each? Ask voters across the country about Barack Obama's image-packed week of foreign travel and you'll get a mix of admiration, suspicion, even a couple of...

!!-- hobj:304 -->!!-- hobj:303 -->!!-- hobj:302 -->Three ballistic missile crew members in North Dakota fell asleep while holding classified launch code devices this month, triggering an investigation by military and...

A zoo in suburban Chicago plans to reopen an exhibit where 16 stingrays died last week when a malfunction let the tank's water get too warm. Brookfield Zoo officials say the Sharks! at Stingray Bay exhibit will reopen...

!!-- pobj:RM103-0611081006 -->A killer who argued Virginia's procedures for lethal injection were unconstitutional was executed Thursday after a federal appeals court upheld the primary method of capital punishment in...

Forget long-winded foreign policy sessions, White House meetings, traveling the globe and talks with world leaders. What Condoleezza Rice really wants to do is shop. In western Australia on Friday, the secretary of...

A man convicted of murder for failing to seek medical help for his handicapped daughter for more than a week after she suffered third-degree burns in a scalding bath was sentenced Thursday to seven years in prison. ...

New Zealand students protesting the Iraq war offered a reward to anyone who carries out a citizen's arrest of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit to the country Friday. The Auckland University...

A court sentenced one of Argentina's most feared former military leaders to life in prison on Thursday for the 1977 kidnapping, torture and killing of four leftist activists. Luciano Benjamin Menendez, 81, was...

Chinese state media say 22 rescuers who helped victims of May's devastating earthquake have been chosen as torchbearers for the Olympic torch. The official Xinhua News Agency says soldiers, firefighters and civil...

A Mexican police official says gunmen have killed a state prison director in the border city of Ciudad Juarez. City police spokesman Jaime Torres says prison chief Salvador Barreno was shot Thursday as he drove in...

A Moroccan prisoner released from Guantanamo in 2004 was Osama bin Laden's top bodyguard, according to testimony Thursday in the war crimes trial of another alleged bodyguard. Defendant Salim Hamdan said the Moroccan,...

Dow Chemical Co. said Thursday that despite record sales and two double-digit price increases unveiled in the second quarter, its profit for the period fell 27 percent, in large part because of sharply higher costs for...

Bleeding cash and with its very survival uncertain, Ford Motor Co., an icon of American automaking, will try to import some of its success from across the Atlantic. Ford reported its worst-ever quarterly loss Thursday...

Qualcomm, the world's largest maker of chips that run cell phones, issued fourth-quarter and full-year earnings guidance Thursday that fell short of Wall Street targets, but the stock soared on a broad-ranging legal...

Regional bank National City Corp. on Thursday reported a $1.76 billion loss for the second quarter, as mortgage loans soured and it took a big charge related to previous acquisitions. Over the past year, mortgages have...

Xerox Corp.'s second-quarter profit skidded 19 percent, but matched Wall Street's forecast, as the office-equipment maker was hurt by restructuring charges while its cash-cow supplies and services business hummed along...

A New York publisher is suing Foxy Brown and Lil' Kim, saying they were paid advances for books they never delivered. Simon & Schuster Inc. says Brown was paid $75,000 in 2005 to deliver an autobiography called...

Estelle Getty always liked a bargain. Despite her sitcom success with "The Golden Girls," son Carl Gettleman told friends and family gathered at a private memorial service Thursday that his mother always chose frugal...

If you haven't heard of "Twilight," ask a teenager. The best-selling young-adult book isn't bound for the big screen until December, but fan frenzy for the film practically took over Comic-Con on Thursday. Hundreds of...

Country singer Chris Cagle has been found not guilty of domestic violence after his girlfriend refused to testify against him. Cagle and Jennifer Tant were both charged with domestic violence after police said they got...

MTV is staking its brand on a lesser-known one: Russell Brand. The British actor and comedian will host this year's Video Music Awards, set to air live from Paramount Pictures Studios in Los Angeles on Sept. 7, MTV...

Ryan Braun had four hits for a second straight game, including a two-run homer in the ninth, and the Milwaukee Brewers beat the St. Louis Cardinals 4-3 on Thursday night, their eighth straight victory. The Brewers...

Gil Meche pitched seven scoreless innings after a shaky start and John Buck drove in two runs, helping the Kansas City Royals hold off Tampa Bay 4-2 Thursday night to extend the AL East-leading Rays' road losing streak...

Carlos Zambrano pitched seven solid innings and the Chicago Cubs snapped a 10-game losing streak to the Florida Marlins with a 6-3 victory Thursday night. After a 2-4 road trip, the Cubs got home runs from Henry Blanco...

The Golden State Warriors made sure they would have Monta Ellis in their backcourt at least for the near future, re-signing the explosive guard to a multiyear contract Thursday. Ellis, who was a restricted free agent,...

Nnamdi Asomugha could have easily skipped the two-a-days and the monotony of training camp practices and signed his franchise player tender offer in a few weeks to be ready for the start of the season. Instead, he...

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (BP)--Wind and heavy rain continued from what remained of Hurricane Dolly Thursday in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas while churches from the Gulf Coast westward toward McAllen, 70 miles inland,...

GRAPEVINE, Texas (BP)--John Lilley, president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas, has been terminated by the school's board of regents after less than three years in the position.Lilley was the focus of controversy in...

EDITOR'S NOTE: Listen to an audio version of this column here.RICHMOND, Va. (BP)--Pop quiz: If you don't really believe Jesus Christ is the one and only way to salvation, would you ...-- pray for the lost at home and...

ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)--In the first column in this series I said that we can come to terms with Jesus' claims to being the only way by answering three rudimentary questions. In yesterday's column we looked at the first...

RICHMOND, Va. (BP)--Elaine Lambach, 49, a missionary serving in Brazil through the Southern Baptist International Mission Board, died after a brief illness July 14. Lambach, a mother of five, was serving in church and...

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...

It was a hot lead for detectives on a cold case. People suddenly were getting salmonella at a Minnesota restaurant more than 1,000 miles from the center of the nation's outbreak. Not my tomatoes, protested the manager....

T-R-O-U-B-L-E could loom for a Scrabble knockoff that has become one of the most popular activities on Facebook. Hasbro Inc., the company that owns the word game's North American rights, sued the creators of the...

Scientists have exposed some of the mystery behind the northern lights. On Thursday, NASA released findings that indicate magnetic explosions about one-third of the way to the moon cause the northern lights, or aurora...

Microsoft's CEO defended the software maker's decision to invest heavily in its unprofitable online business, but shed minimal light Thursday on specific steps it will take to challenge Google in the wake of the failed...

An influential shareholder advisory firm endorsed the re-election of Yahoo Inc.'s entire board Thursday, reducing the chances that the Internet company's directors will be ousted for spurning Microsoft Corp.'s $47.5...

Embarq Corp. has revealed more details about its exploration of a program that tracked Internet subscribers' Web-surfing habits for advertising purposes, telling Congress that it performed the test on 26,000 customers...

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...

Tropical Storm Cristobal was expected to continue to move northeastward along the eastern seaboard on Sunday, possibly making landfall over the Outer Banks of North Carolina. In any case, it was to produce much-needed...