US News

Barack Obama, a 47-year-old first-term senator from Illinois, became the first African-American ever nominated for president by a major political party after delegates to the Democratic National Convention chose him as their standard-bearer Wednesday.

Detroit’s poverty rate of 33.8 percent was the highest among cities with more than 250,000 people, followed by Cleveland, at 29.5 percent; Buffalo; El Paso, Texas, 27.4; Memphis, 26.2; Miami, 25.5; Milwaukee, 24.4; Newark, 23.9; Philadelphia, 23.8; and Cincinnati, 23.5

More than one out of four people in Buffalo are poor, according to the latest estimates by the U. S. Census Bureau.

Naked surfing. Naked volleyball. Naked sunbathing. Naked swimming. Another sunny afternoon here in a remote patch of San Onofre State Beach, where birthday suits far outnumber bathing ones.

Nearly 900 prisoners escaped

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - The Taliban bomber calmly parked a white fuel tanker near the prison gates of this city one evening in June, then jumped down from the cab and let out a laugh.

United States and its allies denounced the decision

Russia on Tuesday recognized the independence of two enclaves that have long sought to secede from neighboring Georgia .

With her husband looking on tenderly and her supporters watching with tears in their eyes, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton deferred her own dreams on Tuesday night and delivered an emphatic plea at the ...

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn called for more oil and gas drilling, lower taxes and a new system to finance the federal highway system during a stop here Tuesday.

"We know the failure of the United States to develop our own God-given natural resources has made us intolerably dependent on foreign oil," Cornyn, a Republican, told a crowd at a Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce lunch at the Petroleum Club.

There's quiet buzz in Washington this week that convicted GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff and several colleagues—including scam-artist Michael Scanlon—will be sentenced soon for their roles in the 2005 tribes-and-bribes scandal. These rumors have circulated before, so perhaps it's the natural gossip of idle politicos during the Capitol's dog days. But individuals tangentially related to the case say the sentences could come as early as next week, during the Republican convention.

The number of people without health insurance fell by more than 1 million in 2007, the first annual decline since the Bush administration took office, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday.

And while the number of uninsured dropped to 45.7 million, down from 47 million in 2006, it was largely because more people were covered through government programs.

Federal officials said Tuesday nearly 600 suspected illegal immigrants were detained in a raid on a manufacturing plant in southern Mississippi, making it the largest such sweep in the country.

A federal jury awarded Mattel Inc. $40 million in damages on Tuesday in a federal copyright lawsuit that pitted the house of Barbie against MGA Entertainment Inc., the maker of the saucy Bratz dolls.

Every major airport in the United States was experiencing flight delays Tuesday afternoon because of a communications breakdown at a Federal Aviation Administration facility, the administration said.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, speaking in the midst of one of the lowest points in the Russia-West relationship since the breakup of the Soviet Union 17 years ago, said Tuesday that his country did not seek a new Cold War — but neither was it afraid of one.

The cost of fighting large fires in California and elsewhere is forcing the U.S. Forest Service to divert hundreds of millions of dollars set aside for work including roads, trails, recreational improvements - even fire prevention.

In a memo this month to regional foresters, Forest Service Chief Abigail Kimbell said spending on fires could reach $1.6 billion this year, about half the agency's budget.

President Bush wants to protect three remote island chains in the western and central Pacific.

They include parts of the Northern Mariana islands and eight islands and coral reef atolls and their surrounding waters that are part of the Line Islands and American Samoa.

Sales of existing homes rose 3.1 percent in July, easily beating Wall Street's expectations, as buyers snapped up deeply discounted properties in parts of the country hit hardest by the housing bust.

Existing home sales in the Midwest tumbled 17 percent last month from July 2007, while the median price in the region inched up to more than $175,000, the National Association of Realtors said Monday.

Investigators are questioning the mother of 3-year-old twins who died after they were left inside a car for more than two hours in northeastern Kansas.

Fair wages, fair markets, health security, retirement security, equal justice…for all

There's no doubt that George W. Bush's administration has been a catastrophe, and that historians will one day rank him as one of our nation's very worst presidents.

Twelve states, New York City and the District of Columbia are suing the Environmental Protection Agency, claiming the Bush administration has failed to rein in emissions from oil refineries.