LANSING, Mich. (AP) _ A quarter-century ago, Michigan's monthly unemployment rate hit 17 percent and so many laid-off workers left the state that bumper stickers asked, "Will the last one leaving Michigan please turn out the lights?"
Fears of a replay now have residents feeling even gloomier in this hard-hit industrial state where...
CHICAGO (AP) _ Alarm in the aviation industry over a projected 10 percent drop in domestic flights this winter hasn't derailed plans to open multimillion-dollar runways at three U.S. airports on Thursday.
Despite global economic woes that have fewer people taking to the skies, airport officials in all three cities are heralding the...
CHICAGO (AP) _ As far as Miguel Garcia is concerned, Chicago already has a gay high school.
Jones College Prep, where the 16-year-old is a junior, has the city's largest Gay Straight Alliance, an organization of more than 100 students that he and other members say wields considerable influence at their downtown campus....
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) _ California's highest court agreed Wednesday to hear several legal challenges to the state's new ban on same-sex marriage but refused to allow gay couples to resume marrying before it rules.
The California Supreme Court accepted three lawsuits seeking to nullify Proposition 8, a voter-approved constitutional...
BEIJING (AP) _ China announced a complete overhaul of its dairy industry Thursday to improve safety at every step — from cow breeding to milk sales — saying its worst food quality scandal in years had revealed "major problems" in quality control.
Changes will be made within the next year in production, purchasing, processing and...
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) _ An anti-piracy watchdog group on Thursday welcomed an Indian warship's destruction of a suspected pirate vessel in waters off Somalia, where hijackings have become increasingly violent and the hijackers increasingly bold.
In a rare victory in the sea war against the Somali pirates, the Indian navy's INS...
BAGHDAD (AP) _ Iraqi lawmakers have finished a second reading of the Iraq-U.S. security pact as the parliament was engulfed in protests from opposition lawmakers for a second straight day.
The reading is part of the legislative process leading up to a vote on the pact scheduled for November 24.
Lawmakers loyal to...
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) _ Sri Lankan troops broke through a strategic front in the country's civil war on Thursday, overrunning an important rebel defense line north of the Tamil Tiger's de facto state, the military said.
While government forces have pushed deep into rebel-held territory from the south in recent months, the rebels...
NEW YORK (AP) _ The economy hung like a cloud over the 59th annual National Book Awards. Barack Obama was the silver lining.
"It's a good time to be alive," announced author, Obama fan and fiction committee chair Gail Godwin, as she gracefully pulled out an envelope Wednesday night— in stated emulation of the president-elect —...
LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Paris Hilton and her boyfriend of nine months, Benji Madden, have broken up.
Hilton publicist Alanna McCarthy said Wednesday that the two "remain very good friends." She wouldn't say more.
Hilton and Madden have been photographed wearing rings with each other's initials. The 27-year-old socialite...
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) _ A painting forcibly auctioned by Germany's Nazi government should remain with the estate of a late Jewish art dealer who lost it when his gallery was liquidated, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday.
The ruling by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston blocks an attempt by German baroness...
LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Paris Hilton and her boyfriend of nine months, Benji Madden, have broken up. Hilton publicist Alanna McCarthy said Wednesday that the two "remain very good friends." She wouldn't say more.
Hilton and Madden have been photographed wearing rings with each other's initials. The 27-year-old socialite also joined her...
USA Gymnastics has never received a complaint about Bela or Martha Karolyi in the nearly 30 years they have been coaching in the United States, the governing body said Wednesday, a day after a Romanian gymnast alleged the two had abused her.
Trudi Eberle Kollar, a double silver medalist at the 1980 Olympics, said the Karolyis hit...
STRASBOURG, France (AP) _ Tour de France champion Carlos Sastre will be going head-to-head with Lance Armstrong at the Giro d'Italia next year.
With Armstrong still undecided on competing in the Tour, the Giro guarantees at least one major race featuring both the reigning Tour champion and the seven-time winner.
Sastre...
