AP - In an early sign of promise, Israeli and Palestinian leaders pledged Thursday in a cordial first round of talks to keep meeting at regular intervals, aiming to nail down a framework for overcoming deep disputes and achieving lasting peace within one year.
19 min 48 sec ago
AP - The last ferry left for the mainland and coastal residents hunkered down at home as Hurricane Earl closed in with 115 mph winds Thursday on North Carolina's dangerously exposed Outer Banks, the first and potentially most destructive stop on the storm's projected journey up the Eastern Seaboard.
21 min 8 sec ago
AP - Fresh off his divorce, Tiger Woods has taken out a $54.5 million mortgage on his Florida waterfront estate.
26 min 39 sec ago
Reuters - A last-minute change in the fall course schedule of Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren has fueled speculation the White House might soon nominate her to head the newly created U.S. consumer financial agency.
26 min 54 sec ago
AP - The Coast Guard is saying there are no immediate signs of a spill from an oil platform fire in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast.
28 min 35 sec ago
AP - Chris Brown is back to a familiar place — the No. 1 spot on the Billboard charts.
28 min 42 sec ago
Reuters - An oil and gas platform operated by Mariner Energy burst into flames on Thursday and unleashed a mile-long oil sheen into the Gulf of Mexico, just as engineers on a nearby platform were resolving the worst offshore oil spill in history.
33 min 57 sec ago
AP - The recipient of a rare double hand transplant says he feels "fantastic" and can wiggle fingers on both his new hands.
35 min 5 sec ago
AP - This year's back-to-school season isn't as big a bust for retailers as they feared — or as last year's — but it's not great either.
41 min 32 sec ago
AP - Congress seems increasingly reluctant to let taxes go up, even on wealthier Americans.
59 min 6 sec ago
Reuters - Burger King Holdings Inc agreed to sell itself to investment firm 3G Capital for $3.26 billion, giving the No. 2 U.S. fast-food chain breathing room to fix its business and close the gap with leader McDonald's Corp.
1 hour 9 min ago
Reuters - The Justice Department on Thursday sued an Arizona sheriff for refusing to cooperate with its investigation into allegations he and his police force discriminate against Hispanics in his program to crack down on illegal immigrants.
1 hour 29 min ago
Reuters - The Environmental Protection Agency will roll out more regulations on greenhouse gases and other pollution to help fight climate change, but they will not be as strong as action by Congress, a senior administration official said.
2 hours 6 min ago
Reuters - Israeli and Palestinian leaders opened direct peace talks under U.S. auspices on Thursday and agreed to meet every two weeks to try to forge a deal within a year to end a conflict that has boiled for six decades.
2 hours 8 min ago
AFP - Israeli and Palestinian leaders launched their first direct negotiations in 20 months here Thursday, agreeing to meet every two weeks in a bid to reach a lasting peace settlement within a year.
2 hours 11 min ago
AP - Axl Rose, it seems, needs a little more patience - and a much louder alarm clock.
2 hours 18 min ago
AP - Goodbye, Melanie Oudin. Hello, Beatrice Capra.
2 hours 19 min ago
Reuters - Hurricane Earl took aim at North Carolina on Thursday and was on track to lash its barrier islands with dangerous winds and pounding surf before cutting a path up the U.S. East Coast to Canada.
2 hours 37 min ago
AP - India has widened its security crackdown, asking all companies that provide encrypted communications — not just BlackBerry-maker Research In Motion — to install servers in the country to make it easier for the government to obtain users' data. That would likely affect digital giants like Google and Skype.
2 hours 52 min ago
AP - The U.S. Justice Department sued Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Thursday, saying the Arizona lawman refused for more than a year to turn over records in an investigation into allegations his department discriminates against Hispanics.
2 hours 52 min ago
AFP - Hurricane Earl bore down on a vast stretch of the US East Coast on Thursday, as tens of thousands of people fled North Carolina's barrier islands to avoid dangerous winds and surf.
3 hours 35 min ago
AP - Grammy-winning rapper T.I. was arrested along with his wife on suspicion of possessing methamphetamines, five months after the hip-hop star finished a prison stint on weapons charges.
3 hours 50 min ago
AP - Could your kitchen at home pass a restaurant inspection?
3 hours 58 min ago
Reuters - The United States will start preliminary talks with its allies in Afghanistan soon on next year's planned "transition," expected to include withdrawal of some U.S. forces, the top NATO commander in the country said on Thursday.
4 hours 8 min ago
AP - Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke told a panel investigating the financial crisis that regulators must be ready to shutter the largest institutions if they threaten to bring down the financial system.
5 hours 26 min ago
AP - As the three hostages at Discovery Channel's headquarters appeared ready to make a run for it, police said Thursday that a SWAT team officer quickly shot and killed the increasingly agitated gunman who had explosives strapped to himself, ending the four-hour standoff.
5 hours 31 min ago
Reuters - A burning oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico is owned by Mariner Energy, according to trade sources and local media reports.
5 hours 53 min ago
AFP - Ten Afghan civilians were killed Thursday in a NATO air strike on three vehicles carrying election campaign workers in northern Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai said in a statement.
5 hours 56 min ago
AP - A weak economy got a little lift Thursday with new data suggesting companies aren't pursuing mass layoffs and stores are a little busier.
5 hours 59 min ago
Reuters - Russia abruptly signaled Thursday it would extend a grain export ban until late 2011 and ordered authorities to prevent speculators driving up food prices after the worst harvest in years.
6 hours 5 min ago
Reuters - The International Monetary Fund will give Pakistan $450 million in emergency flood aid, providing some relief for a government overwhelmed by the disaster and facing renewed militant violence.
6 hours 19 min ago
Reuters - Afghan President Hamid Karzai strongly condemned an air strike by NATO-led forces which he said killed 10 campaign workers for this month's election, a sour note as U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived for talks.
6 hours 36 min ago
AP - The cap that ended BP's three-month oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico was set to come off Thursday as a prelude to raising a massive, failed piece of equipment and preparing for a final seal on the broken seafloor well.
7 hours 55 min ago
AP - American officers are taking up posts at Paris' Charles de Gaulle Airport to help identify potential terrorists or other high-risk passengers heading to the United States.
8 hours 3 min ago
AP - The top US military commander in Afghanistan says the sometimes strained relationship between the US and Afghan President Hamid Karzai is solid.
8 hours 12 min ago
Reuters - Dismal conditions in flood-hit areas in southwest Pakistan could force thousands of Pakistanis and Afghan refugees to cross the border into Iran, the U.N. refugee agency warned Thursday.
9 hours 16 min ago
Reuters - Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Thursday he had gone public to deny rumors he was gay and in a relationship with an aide because he and his wife were fed up of the allegations.
9 hours 35 min ago
Reuters - Police shot and killed a man who took three people hostage, waving a gun and apparently fitted out with explosives, in the headquarters of the Discovery Channel near Washington Wednesday.
9 hours 58 min ago
AP - Rep. Chet Edwards, an imperiled Democrat deep in the heart of Republican territory, finds exiting American Legion Post No. 273 slow going. Supporters and well-wishers keep stopping him.
10 hours 25 min ago
Reuters - Critics hoping for more from Apple Inc's Web-to-TV plans -- a device, say, that would revolutionize living room entertainment the way the iPad changed tablet computing -- may just need to wait a bit longer.
10 hours 42 min ago
AP - The idea seemed simple though bold: Call reputed gang leaders to a meeting with top police and federal prosecutors and deliver an ultimatum to end killings in the nation's third-largest city.
10 hours 53 min ago
Reuters - An apparent air strike by foreign forces killed 10 election campaign workers in Afghanistan's north on Thursday, a government spokesman said, and NATO-led forces said they were investigating the incident.
11 hours 10 min ago
AFP - Relief efforts in flood-ravaged Pakistan are being stretched by the "unprecedented scale" of the disaster, with the flow of international aid almost at a standstill, the UN said Thursday.
11 hours 32 min ago
Reuters - U.S. prosecutors have charged the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, in the plot that killed seven CIA employees at an American base in Afghanistan last December, the Justice Department said on Wednesday.
12 hours 15 min ago
AP - Allergan Inc., the maker of wrinkle-smoothing Botox, has agreed to pay $600 million to settle a yearslong federal investigation into its marketing of the top-selling, botulin-based drug.
13 hours 51 min ago
AP - Andy Roddick found it infuriating that a lineswoman who called him for a foot fault was wrong about which of his shoes touched the line.
13 hours 50 min ago
AP - It's been three years since Scott Eckersley was fired after pointing out that his then-boss, former Gov. Matt Blunt, and others in Blunt's administration should not be deleting certain e-mails because they belonged to the public record.
14 hours 8 min ago
AFP - The United States slapped Pakistani Taliban chief, Hakimullah Mehsud, with terrorism charges for his alleged role in the murder of seven Americans at a CIA base in Afghanistan.
15 hours 24 min ago
AP - Hurricane Earl steamed toward the Eastern Seaboard early Thursday as communities from North Carolina to New England kept a close eye on the forecast, worried that even a slight shift in the storm's predicted offshore track could put millions of people in the most densely populated part of the country in harm's way.
15 hours 45 min ago
AP - A murder suspect who led officers on a high-speed chase with his dead girlfriend in the passenger seat is a central figure in the investigation of at least four killings, authorities said Wednesday.
16 hours 9 min ago