President Bush spent a second day this week traveling to raise money for Republicans, all out of public view. On Friday, the fundraiser Bush headlined was to help Republican Aaron Schock in his race for the House seat...

Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Friday that Barack Obama's policies would have led to defeat in both Iraq and Afghanistan and possibly pushed the entire Middle East into war, stepping up his criticism...

IN THE HEADLINES Obama says Iran should accept EU nuclear proposal and not wait for next US president ... In shadow of Obama trip, McCain works battleground states and raises campaign funds ... German leader's office...

Coast Guard says Mississippi River will reopen to limited traffic following oil spill. ...

A written prayer that Barack Obama left this week in the cracks of the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site, asks God to guide him and guard his family, an Israeli newspaper reported Friday. "Lord _ Protect my family...

The food industry must drop any remaining opposition to electronic record-keeping and back an effective system for tracing contaminated food to its source, a lawmaker investigating food safety said Friday. "It is my...

Call it the un-impeachment hearing. The Democratic-run House Judiciary Committee put on a hearing that it insisted was not about removing President Bush from office. But critics of Bush's policies couldn't pass up the...

The government has endangered the public's health and safety by failing to clean up abandoned mines on federal land in the West, according to a scathing audit released Friday. The Interior Department's inspector...

Three white teens were charged Friday in what officials said was an epithet-filled fatal beating of an illegal Mexican immigrant in a small northeast Pennsylvania coal town. Brandon J. Piekarsky, 16, and Colin J....

Senate Democrats failed Friday to advance a measure to rein in oil market speculators, one of a series of efforts to tell voters they are serious about addressing $4-a-gallon gasoline, and they rejected Republican calls...

The spokesman for the banned Iraqi Olympic Committee says he still hopes that Iraq can take part in next month's Beijing games. Jazair al-Sahlani says that talks are under way Friday to restore Iraq's Olympic status...

This hardscrabble Mexican border town welcomed 400 soldiers when they arrived four months ago to stop a wave of drug violence that brought daytime gunbattles to its main street. But then the soldiers themselves turned...

A hole the size of a small car in the underside of a Qantas jumbo jet carrying 346 passengers forced the pilot to make an emergency landing Friday after a rapid descent over the South China Sea. The Boeing 747-400 was...

More than 50 dissident Catholic groups from around the world have written an open letter asking Pope Benedict XVI to lift the church's ban on birth control. Taking a half-page ad in the Italian daily Corriere della...

Raging forest fires sent smoke billowing into hotels on the island of Rhodes, prompting the evacuation of more than 2,000 tourists, the Fire Service and municipal officials said. Authorities said the measure was taken...

Arch Coal Inc. said Friday its second-quarter profit tripled on soaring global prices and the company boosted its outlook after beating Wall Street expectations easily. The performance, on the heels of similar big...

Wall Street rose moderately Friday after better than expected economic data placated a market pummeled in the previous session by concerns about housing and the financial sector. The Commerce Department's report on...

Oil prices sank to their lowest point in weeks Friday as investors questioned whether crude has cooled enough to reflect a serious deterioration in demand. Prices at the pump eased to nearly $4 a gallon, and AAA said a...

Consumer spending is down and gas prices are up. That's bad math for the scores of destination retailers across the country that want customers to fill up the tank for a gas-guzzling day of retail therapy. So to cajole...

Chrysler LLC has told dealers that the automaker's financial arm plans to get out of the auto leasing business before the end of the year. A dealer who asked not to be identified says the reason is that the company has...

Ed McMahon has a job. The former "Tonight Show" sidekick is reprising his role as pitchman with several comical commercial segments during "Jimmy Kimmel Live." The first of the four spots, which were filmed Thursday...

Singer Connie Francis is being treated at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York where she was hospitalized after falling ill earlier this week. Her agent, Mike Church, says the 69-year-old singer had been...

The Rolling Stones, the world's top-earning music act last year, have signed a long-term, exclusive worldwide contract with Vivendi SA's Universal Music, dealing a major blow to the group's former recording company, EMI...

It sounds like a scene from "Fight Club." French police say camouflaged paparazzi who managed to get onto the grounds of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt's chateau in southern France on Thursday fought with the Hollywood...

Veteran opera director Wolfgang Wagner welcomed guests to his last Bayreuth festival Friday, walking on the arm of his youngest daughter _ a leading contender to replace him after a 57-year reign and a prolonged...

The Cincinnati Bengals waived running back Kenny Irons on Friday after he failed a physical examination earlier this week. Irons tore a left knee ligament during a preseason game at Detroit in August. The 24-year-old...

Carlos Sastre kept the Tour de France yellow jersey Friday, a day before a time trial that most likely will determine the winner of the three-week race in what the Spaniard calls the "opportunity of my life." Sylvain...

The Pittsburgh Steelers have signed their first-round draft pick, running back Rashard Mendenhall, to a five-year contract. The Steelers announced the deal Friday, but say they have no plans for a news conference or to...

St. Louis Rams running back Steven Jackson, entering the final year of his contract, was a no-show for the opening team meeting of training camp on Friday. Coach Scott Linehan said Thursday after the team arrived at...

The Houston Texans on Friday signed first-round draft pick Duane Brown, an offensive lineman from Virginia Tech who is expected to start this season. Brown took the practice field nearly an hour after the rest of the...

EDITOR'S NOTE: This column by Mike Licona of the North American Mission Board is the final column in a four-part series on the exclusivity of Christianity.ALPHARETTA, Ga. (BP)--In the first column in this series I said...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--Fuge isn't just a hot weather event anymore.This December, LifeWay Christian Resources will debut Fuge Winter Camp at LifeWay Glorieta Conference Center near Santa Fe, N.M.Fuge Winter Camp is...

GLORIETA, N.M. (BP)--The Centrifuge camp began with a bang -- literally.Thunder shook the mountains surrounding the LifeWay Glorieta Conference Center near Santa Fe, N.M., as students, chaperones and leaders ventured...

WASHINGTON (BP)--Four television ministries still have refused to comply fully with a U.S. Senate committee's probe into their financial records nearly nine months after first being asked.The ministries of Kenneth...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--It's no secret that the homosexual community forms part of Barack Obama's base, and a new Harris Interactive poll shows the presumptive Democratic nominee holding a 46-point lead over Republican...

When there's an urgent need to trace fruits and vegetables in a crisis like the salmonella outbreak, a lot of the pieces for a rapid-response system are in place. But nobody has quite figured out how to put them...

After three surgeries, Judy Sherer still had chronic pain in her left shoulder. She'd lost faith in her doctors, and in despair tried a new health benefit offered by her employer. The service, Health Advocate, is a...

More than 1,000 people died over two years from an illegal version of the painkiller fentanyl, the government reported Thursday in its first national tally of those deaths. The spike of overdoses seems to have ended,...

Scientists will have to take "enormous intellectual leaps" to develop an AIDS vaccine in the coming years, say researchers clearly frustrated by the failure of a once-promising shot. The researchers, including a top...

Scientists will have to take "enormous intellectual leaps" to develop an AIDS vaccine in the coming years, say researchers clearly frustrated by the failure of a once-promising shot. The researchers, including a top...

AOL is shutting three data-storage services, including one of the Internet's earliest photo-sharing sites, as it seeks to cut costs and focus resources on its advertising opportunities. AOL Pictures, the year-old...

Nokia Corp., Motorola Inc. and other handset makers rose along with the broader market Friday following Samsung Electronics' report that its mobile phone sales rose 22 percent in the second quarter. Samsung's handset...

With the old gas-guzzler in the garage, you've got your bicycle ready and your sneakers laced up. Now all you need is a map of the quickest, safest routes for riding around town. Well, not so fast. As more commuters...

Bruce R. Chizen, the former chief executive of Adobe Systems Inc., has been named to an expanded board of another software company, Oracle Corp. Chizen, 52, who stepped down as Adobe CEO last year "to take a break"...

Scientists have exposed some of the mystery behind the northern lights. On Thursday, NASA released findings that indicate magnetic explosions about one-third of the way to the moon cause the northern lights, or aurora...

The remnants of Hurricane Dolly were expected to continue flooding southern Texas on Friday and possibly spawn tornadoes, while storms were forecast in the Plains, the Midwest, the Southwest, the Southeast and New...

The remnants of Hurricane Dolly were dumping heavy rain over southern Texas on Thursday, a day after making landfall, then weakening to a tropical storm. Flooding concerns persisted as Dolly crept across the state. A...

Hurricane Dolly was expected to make landfall Wednesday near the Texas-Mexico border, bringing up to 15 inches of rain to southern Texas. Flooding was anticipated, especially along the coast, because of the heavy rain...

A cold front hovering over the Ohio Valley early Tuesday was expected to trigger showers and thunderstorms from the Central Plains to New England, while Tropical Storm Dolly threatened Texas. Scattered showers, strong...

Tropical storms Dolly and Cristobal were to continue spinning away in the Atlantic Basin on Monday. Cristobal was to pull away from the North Carolina coastline in the morning, but showers and gusty winds were to last...