DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - The first widespread snowstorm of the season crawled across the Midwest on Thursday, with whiteout conditions stranding holiday travelers and sending drivers sliding over slick roads - including into a fatal 25-vehicle pileup in Iowa.
HARROLD, Texas (AP) - In this tiny Texas town, children and their parents don't give much thought to safety at the community's lone school - mostly because some of the teachers are carrying concealed weapons.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a $633 billion defense bill for next year despite Pentagon complaints that it spares outdated but politically popular weapons at the expense of the military's ability to fight.
CHICAGO (AP) - About 1,000 flights have been canceled as a winter storm bears down on the Midwest.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Gov. Jerry Brown says he is wary of expanding Medi-Cal as the state implements federal health reform because it could put California's budget "right out of whack" by adding up to $4 billion a year in costs.
NEW YORK (AP) - The brother of imprisoned financier Bernard Madoff was sentenced Thursday to 10 years in prison for crimes committed in the shadow of his notorious sibling.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Police at California State University, Northridge, have held a training exercise involving a simulated shooting spree - a scenario made more poignant and timely by last week's deadly attack at a Connecticut elementary school.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Gov. Jerry Brown says he is wary of expanding Medi-Cal as the state implements federal health reform because it could put California's budget "right out of whack" by adding up to $4 billion a year in costs.
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - When it comes to making coins, the Mint isn't getting its two cents worth. In some cases, it doesn't even get half of that. A penny costs more than two cents and a nickel costs more than 11 cents to make and distribute. The quandary is how to make coins more cheaply without sparing our change's quality and durability, or altering its size and appearance.
NEW YORK (AP) - For more than 20 years, state park officials in Massachusetts have encouraged locals to get off the couch Jan. 1 and take a hike - nothing too strenuous, but a healthy way to start the new year.
MOSCOW (AP) - Circus trainers claim two of their elephants were saved from the deadly Siberian cold by vodka.
CHICAGO (AP) - First, there was "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Now, there's "Mailers of the Lost Package." Days after the University of Chicago announced it had received a replica of the journal from the film "Raiders of the Lost Ark," the school says it has solved an international mystery with its roots in Guam. A few weeks ago, a journal addressed to one Henry Walton Jones, Jr. - the given name of Hollywood's ...
Now that he's away from the pool, Michael Phelps can reflect - really reflect - on what he accomplished.
MERIDA, Mexico (AP) - The crystal skulls have spoken: The world is not going to end.
JERUSALEM (AP) - Worshippers usually leave notes to the Almighty at one of Judaism's holiest sites. But half a billion dollars?
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - Whether it's the densely populated Southern California coast or the mountains of rural Northern California, geography is going to play a larger role in the cost of health insurance under the federal health care overhaul set to take effect next year.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Since a deadly airline crash in 2009, the government hasn't kept its promise to ensure that major airlines are holding their smaller partners to the same safety standards, a federal watchdog says.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The weeklong Senate recess gives outside interest groups opposed to Chuck Hagel's nomination to become defense secretary more time to sharpen their attack against President Barack Obama's choice. And they're not wasting any of it, promising to redouble their efforts to scour Hagel's record and to pressure senators to vote against him.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A science institute in Northern California says it has received numerous reports of a bright streak of light over the San Francisco Bay area.
NEW YORK (AP) - Conventional wisdom holds that no one from the United States could be elected pope, that the superpower has more than enough worldly influence without an American in the seat of St. Peter.
WESLEY CHAPEL, Fla. (AP) - A California man has been arrested in southwest Florida on an outstanding murder warrant in the death of his ex-wife.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Get ready for two weeks of intensifying warnings about how crucial, popular government services are about to wither. Many of the threats could come true.
MOSCOW (AP) - With a blinding flash and a booming shock wave, a meteor blazed across the western Siberian sky Friday and exploded with the force of 20 atomic bombs, injuring more than 1,000 people as it blasted out windows and spread panic in a city of 1 million.
CHICAGO (AP) - Pressing his case in the town that launched his political career, President Barack Obama called Friday for the government to take an active, wide-ranging role in ensuring every American has a "ladder of opportunity" into the middle class.
PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) - In a courtroom, not an Olympic stadium, there was no click-click-click of Oscar Pistorius' prosthetic limbs. His only sound Friday was loud, uncontrollable sobs as prosecutors charged him with premeditated murder in the shooting death of his model girlfriend.