HAVANA (AP) - President Raul Castro declared Thursday that Cuba's two-year experiment with market reforms is working and has the wind at its back, but said much work remains to breathe life into the sputtering economy.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Susan Rice, the embattled U.N. ambassador, abruptly withdrew from consideration to be the next secretary of state on Thursday after a bitter, weekslong standoff with Republican senators who declared they would fight to defeat her nomination.
RICHLAND HILLS, Texas (AP) - A 6-year-old Texas boy whose father allegedly carved a pentagram on the child's back is out of the hospital and doing well given the circumstances, police said Thursday.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) - Jack Roland Murphy, the famed jewel thief and surfer known as "Murph the Surf," has spent the last quarter-century going into prisons and telling inmates that they could still turn their lives around.
NEW YORK (AP) - To millions of people, the Christmas tree is a cheerful sight. To scientists who decipher the DNA codes of plants and animals, it's a monster.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Dennis O'Brien rubs his head as he details ailments triggered by the fungal meningitis he developed after a series of steroid shots in his neck: nausea, vomiting, dizziness, drowsiness, blurred vision, exhaustion and trouble with his speech and attention.
HUNTINGTON BEACH (AP) - Seawater spread into several low-lying communities along the California coast Thursday morning as unusually high "king tides" pulled the Pacific Ocean farther ashore than normal.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The "fiscal cliff" debate is splitting the business community over taxes, driving a wedge between two natural Republican allies: the nation's corporate leaders who are helping strengthen President Barack Obama's bargaining position and the small business advocates bristling over the prospect of higher taxes.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Before police say Jacob Tyler Roberts walked into a mall wearing a hockey-style mask, shooting numerous rounds that killed two and injured a teenage girl, he visited the brother of his roommate, hugged him and told him he was going "somewhere south, somewhere warm."
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) - Eleven people aboard a marijuana-laden panga smuggler boat have been arrested on a remote Santa Barbara County beach.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - For a pair of Golden Globe nominees, Superstorm Sandy was still on their minds and probably ringing in their ears.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - After nearly a year circling the moon, NASA's Ebb and Flow will meet their demise when they crash - on purpose - into the lunar surface.
NEW YORK (AP) - The Hollywood Foreign Press Association is known for what you could call a certain quirkiness in its selection process. Any group that would see fit to nominate "Patch Adams" and "The Tourist" for best picture certainly marches to its own beat.
VENTURA, Calif. (AP) - The driver of a Hummer that struck down and killed a Southern California bicyclist has been sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Environmental advocates in Northern California plan to take photographs of some of the highest tides of the year to draw attention to what climate change could do decades from now.
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) - A man pulled a woman off a city bus in northern Indiana on Wednesday, fatally shot her and then took a 3-year-old boy hostage before a sniper killed him during a police standoff.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - The widow of actor Andy Griffith has gotten a permit to tear down the house where he lived for many years on the North Carolina waterfront, upsetting friends who had hoped it would be preserved as a museum or Graceland-type estate.
SAN DIEGO (AP) - It's been three years since Leigh Steinberg had his last drink of vodka, the personal demon that sent his personal and professional lives crashing out of control.
NEW YORK (AP) - It seems an unpopular position in college basketball is fashion forward.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Five former elected officials of the tiny California city of Bell were convicted Wednesday of multiple counts of misappropriation of public funds, and a sixth defendant was cleared entirely.
VATICAN CITY (AP) - Forgive Pope Francis' security team for looking a bit nervous.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Privacy laws urgently need to be updated to protect the public from information-gathering by the thousands of civilian drones expected to be flying in U.S. skies in the next decade or so, legal experts told a Senate panel Wednesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) - While lower-wage American workers have accounted for the lion's share of the jobs created since the 2007-2009 Great Recession, a new survey shows that they are also among the most pessimistic about their future career prospects, their job security and their finances.
VALLEJO (AP) - A suspected bank robber released from jail earlier this month is back in custody again after being arrested in Vallejo, officials said.
DENVER (AP) - Gov. John Hickenlooper signed bills Wednesday that place new restrictions on firearms and signaled a change for Democrats who traditionally shied away from gun control debate in Colorado - a state with a moderate streak and pioneer tradition of gun ownership and self-reliance.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Tea party favorite Sen. Rand Paul said Tuesday that the nation's illegal immigrants should be able to become citizens eventually, but amid a furor from conservative activists on the explosive issue he quickly sought to make clear that, while they would not be sent home, they couldn't get in line in front of anyone else.
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - If history is any judge, the U.S. government will be paying for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for the next century as service members and their families grapple with the sacrifices of combat.
VATICAN CITY (AP) - After a week marked by acts of simplicity and openness, Pope Francis finally let his words do the talking as he officially began his stewardship of the Catholic Church on Tuesday.
NEW YORK (AP) - A government survey of parents says 1 in 50 U.S. schoolchildren has autism, surpassing another federal estimate for the disorder.