U.S. National News

FILE - In this file photo taken Aug. 13, 2009 South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford attends a meeting in Columbia, S.C. Sanford faces ethics charges he broke state laws more than three dozen times by violating rules on airplane travel and campaign money, according to details of the allegations released Monday, Nov. 23, 2009. Sanford's lawyers have claimed the allegations involve minor and technical aspects of the law. (AP Photo/Mary Ann Chastain, File)
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SC gov faces 37 charges he broke state ethics laws

AP - 26 minutes ago

COLUMBIA, S.C. - South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford faces ethics charges he broke state laws more than three dozen times by violating rules on airplane travel and campaign money, according to details of the allegations released Monday.

  • Freight trucks, center, breeze through a congested border check point using a Free and Secure Trade Lane, or FAST Lane, in Laredo, Texas, Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2009. The FAST Lane is part of the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, or C-TPAT. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
    Program to help truckers attracts drug smugglers AP - 22 minutes ago

    LAREDO, Texas - A U.S. program that offers trusted trucking companies speedy passage across American borders has begun attracting just the sort of customers who place a premium on avoiding inspections: Mexican drug smugglers.

  • Hundreds mourn Mich. boy allegedly slain by father AP - Mon Nov 23, 11:51 AM ET

    DETROIT - Funeral services are under way for a 15-year-old Michigan boy who police say pleaded for mercy before being fatally shot by his father.

  • 2 men charged after 3 men found slain in rural Ky. AP - Mon Nov 23, 11:53 AM ET

    GLASGOW, Ky. - Kentucky State Police say two arrests have been made following the discovery of three bodies in rural Kentucky.

  • Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin signs a copy her her autobiography, 'Going Rogue', at the North Post Exchange at Fort Bragg, N.C., Monday, Nov. 23, 2009. (AP Photo/Jim R. Bounds)
    Palin limits crowd interaction at NC's Fort Bragg AP - 6 minutes ago

    FORT BRAGG, N.C. - Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is wrapping up a three-hour book signing by thanking soldiers and shaking their hands at a North Carolina Army base.

  • With a bodyguard beside him, Dr. Conrad Murray, left, the cardiologist under investigation in the death of pop star Michael Jackson, arrives at his clinic Monday, Nov. 23, 2009 in Houston. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)
    Jackson's doctor returns to work at Houston clinic AP - 44 minutes ago

    HOUSTON - Michael Jackson's doctor returned to work at his Houston medical clinic on Monday for the first time since the pop star's death.

  • Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin speaks to a reporter in Riverside, R.I., Sunday, Nov. 22, 2009. Tobin said Sunday that he asked U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy in a 2007 letter to stop receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, because of the congressman's public stance on moral issues. (AP Photo/Josh Reynolds)
    Kennedy dispute reveals divide among Catholics AP - Mon Nov 23, 9:18 AM ET

    EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A bitter dispute over abortion that prompted Rhode Island's Roman Catholic bishop to ask Rep. Patrick Kennedy not to receive Holy Communion has revealed the depth of the divide among Catholics over how politicians should reconcile their faith with their public duties.

  • FILE --This is an Aug. 24, 2007 file photograph of reputed Ku Klux Klansman James Ford Seale as he walks to an awaiting transport vehicle in Jackson, Miss., after receiving three life terms in prison for his role in the 1964 abduction and murder of two black teenagers in southwest Mississippi. The FBI says agents investigating civil rights-era murders have scoured faded documents, interviewed aging lawmen and tried to track down grand jury witnesses who gave testimony decades ago, but still have hit a brick wall in many of the cases. Now, they're turning to the public for information on the next of kin for victims in 33 unsolved killings. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)
    FBI wants public's help in civil rights killings AP - Mon Nov 23, 6:38 AM ET

    JACKSON, Miss. - Over the last three years, the FBI scoured faded documents, interviewed aging lawmen and tracked down witnesses from killings that occurred decades ago, many of them involving white police officers who shot black men or teenagers.

  • This combination of undated photos shows, from left: Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, Waleed bin Attash, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi and Ramzi Binalshibh. The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday, Nov. 22, 2009. (AP Photos)
    Lawyer: 9/11 defendants want platform for views AP - Mon Nov 23, 5:57 AM ET

    NEW YORK - The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said.

  • FILE - This March 17, 2009 file photo shows the cooling towers of Three Mile Island's Unit 1 Nuclear Power Plant reflected in a parking lot puddle in Middletown, Pa. A small amount of radiation was detected in a reactor building at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in central Pennsylvania Saturday afternoon, 21, 2009. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
    Three Mile Island radiation caused by pipe cutting AP - Mon Nov 23, 11:49 AM ET

    HARRISBURG, Pa. - Officials are trying to determine how workers cutting a pipe stirred up radioactive dust at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.

  • FILE - In this Nov. 22, 2006 file photo, travelers arrive for their flights at LaGuardia Airport in New York. Fewer people are expected to fly this holiday season, but travelers shouldn't expect a full reprieve from the horrid flight delays of Thanksgivings past, especially if they need to land anywhere near New York City. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, File)
    Holidays will again test NYC air travel bottleneck AP - Mon Nov 23, 7:54 AM ET

    NEW YORK - Fewer people are expected to fly this holiday season, but travelers shouldn't expect a full reprieve from the horrid flight delays of Thanksgivings past, especially if they need to land anywhere near New York City.

  • In this image taken from video Friday, Nov. 20, 2009 and provided by Harpo Productions Inc., talk-show host Oprah Winfrey announces during a live broadcast of 'The Oprah Winfrey Show' in Chicago that her daytime television show, the foundation of a multibillion-dollar media empire, will end its run in 2011 after 25 seasons on the air. (AP Photo/Harpo Productions, Inc.) MANDATORY CREDIT, NO SALES
    To millions, Oprah's not a megastar, just a BFF AP - 2 hours, 25 minutes ago

    NEW YORK - Like any wife who knows her husband well, Nancy Martus knows what will annoy her man. Like when she utters the phrase, "Oprah says..."

  • This Oct. 13, 2009 photo shows Bill Johnson standing in front of a biomass-fired boiler at Flambeau River Papers LLC in Park Falls, Wis. Johnson is president of Renewable Densified Fuels and son of William Johnson, CEO of Flambeau River Papers. Executives with the company are building a refinery that will convert waste wood to diesel fuel and waxes while providing heat for the paper mill. It is one of many new alternative energy ventures that will use biomass from forests in the Great Lakes region. (AP Photo/John Flesher)
    Bio-fuel growth raises concerns about forests AP - Mon Nov 23, 4:50 AM ET

    PARK FALLS, Wis. - Forests are a treasure trove of limbs and bark that can be made into alternative fuels and some worry the increasing trend of using that logging debris will make those materials too scarce, harming the woodlands.

  • Sister: Man arrested at station is mentally ill AP - 10 minutes ago

    OAKLAND, Calif. - The sister of an unruly passenger injured after being removed from a San Francisco Bay area commuter train says transit police used excessive force on the mentally ill man.

  • In this photo from Tuesday, Nov. 17, 2009, olives ready to be mechanically harvested for olive oil are shown at California Olive Ranch in Artois. In the distance are the new hedgerow-style plantings that allow for mechanical harvesting. Olives can be picked and crushed inside of 90 minutes. In 10 years California officials say the 12,500 acres of olives for oil planted in hedgerow style will grow to 100,000 acres. (AP Photo/Tracie Cone)
    New olive planting method prompts Calif. oil boom AP - Mon Nov 23, 3:46 AM ET

    ARTOIS, Calif. - An oil boom is under way in California's agricultural heartland, as evolving tastes and a trend toward healthy fare have transformed a profession as old as civilization: olive production for the extra virgin market.

  • FILE - In this May 8, 2007 file photo, Dr. Jay Chapman holds a human skull from Nepal that has been hand decorated with silver at his home in Napa, Calif. The man considered the father of lethal injection in the United States says he never gave much thought to how many fatal drugs should be used in the process, only that it worked efficiently. Dr. Chapman, now semiretired in California, said Ohio's decision to adopt a one-drug protocol, the first such system in the country, fits that goal. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File)
    Lethal injection creator fine with 1 drug in Ohio AP - Sun Nov 22, 4:25 PM ET

    COLUMBUS, Ohio - The man considered the father of lethal injection in the United States said it doesn't matter whether three fatal drugs are used or one — as his home state of Ohio has proposed — as long as the drug works efficiently.

Crimes and Trials News

  • Transgender murderer renews electrolysis request AP - 17 minutes ago

    BOSTON - A convicted murderer who is seeking a taxpayer-funded sex-change operation has asked a judge to order Massachusetts prison officials to provide electrolysis treatments.

  • Abortion slaying suspect may use necessity defense AP - 1 hour, 3 minutes ago

    WICHITA, Kan. - Seemingly contradicting his own public statements, an attorney for the man accused of gunning down a Kansas abortion provider has argued in court documents that his client has an "absolute right" to present a defense that argues the killing was justified to stop abortion.

  • A crest of the Federal Bureau of Investigation is seen inside the J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building in Washington, DC. The number of US hate crime victims rose slightly last year to nearly 9,700 from 9,500 in 2007, with most people targeted because of their skin color, the FBI said Monday.(AFP/File/Mandel Ngan)
    Number of hate crimes up slightly in US: FBI AFP - Mon Nov 23, 11:37 AM ET

    WASHINGTON (AFP) - The number of US hate crime victims rose slightly last year to nearly 9,700 from 9,500 in 2007, with most people targeted because of their skin color, the FBI said Monday.