WASHINGTON - The U.S. Navy formally announced on Thursday that it will for the first time recruit women into its submarine force.
It has been 20 years since the Navy first allowed women to serve on its surface warfare ships.  But submarines remained off-limits for several reasons.
The main reason had to do with cramped quarters on […]

MIAMI - Emergency crews in the Gulf of Mexico are deploying containment booms along the U.S. coastline as a massive oil slick from a damaged deepwater well approaches land.  Experts say the slick might reach Mississippi River delta portions of the state of Louisiana by late Thursday.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, says […]

CAIRO - An Egyptian court has sentenced 26 men to prison terms ranging from six months to life on charges of plotting attacks on tourist and commercial sites.  The men were accused of belonging to a cell of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The prisoners maintained their innocence throughout the trial, saying they were just trying […]

WASHINGTON - American taxpayers may soon be subsidizing Brazilian cotton farmers in order to protect the earnings of U.S. drug companies. That’s one way to look at a new agreement aimed at ending a long-running dispute within the World Trade Organization between Brazil and the United States.
It’s the first time the U.S. has been penalized […]

MIAMI - Emergency workers in the United States have set fire to a small portion of an oil spill that has been leaking crude into the Gulf of Mexico since Friday.  Crews are struggling to contain the spill before it reaches coastline as early as Friday.
Boat crews used the burn technique on a small patch […]

PARIS - Lawyers for Manuel Noriega said they will fight for his early release from French prison and against a trial in France. The former Panamanian dictator arrived in Paris Tuesday, after being extradited from the U.S.
Former Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega faces up to 10 years in jail in France after being sentenced in absentia […]

WASHINGTON - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates says Iran and Syria are arming Hezbollah militants in Lebanon with sophisticated rockets and missiles.
Gates says Hezbollah has far more rockets and missiles than most governments in the world, noting that such military capability is destabilizing to the Middle East.
He spoke Tuesday at a Pentagon news conference with […]

HOUSTON - A sunken oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico about 100 kilometers off the coast of Louisiana is leaking petroleum at the rate of about 1,000 barrels per day as industry officials and the U.S. Coast Guard struggle to contain it.  There is concern the oil slick could reach the shore and damage […]

WASHINGTON - The commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, who soon will end a total of four years in the country on several tours of duty, says it will not be clear for five to 10 years whether the American effort there was truly worthwhile, and that the seating of a new government in the […]

WASHINGTON - A measure designed to overhaul the U.S. financial regulatory system has hit a road block in the Senate, failing in a procedural test vote on Monday.
All 41 Senate Republicans voted against formally starting debate on the legislation, which would create the most sweeping new controls on U.S. financial institutions since the Great Depression […]

NEW ORLEANS - With the promise of hearing some great jazz at the 41st Annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival (being held April 23-May 2), fans will not be disappointed.  But, be prepared to encounter almost every other type of music imaginable, with the possible exception of chamber music and Gregorian chants.
Although classical music […]

BEIRUT - More than 2,000 people have marched through the streets of downtown Beirut calling for a secular state.
It started on the social-networking site Facebook, a call to arms by people who believe church and state should not be one. After the online movement grew, Laique Pride organizers decided to take that spirit off-line, staging […]

JERUSALEM - U.S President Barack Obama’s point man in the Middle East has little to show for his latest peace mission. 
U.S. envoy George Mitchell held three days of separate meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, but failed to achieve a breakthrough on resuming peace talks.  He said he will return again next week.
“I look forward […]

WASHINGTON - Global economic leaders declared Friday that the world economy is recovering better than expected from its worst recession in decades, and committed to continue efforts to ensure a sustained worldwide rebound.
Friday’s meetings of central bank governors and finance ministers of the world’s Group of 20 nations in Washington D.C. credited massive government stimulus […]

WASHINGTON - A tough new immigration law has been enacted in the Southwestern U.S. state of Arizona.  U.S. President Barack Obama calls the crackdown misguided.   
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed legislation Friday that has been described as one of America’s toughest immigration laws.
The new law requires police in Arizona to question people about their immigration status […]

WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is considering deploying a new group of intercontinental ballistic weapons that could deliver large conventional warheads and reduce America’s dependence on its nuclear arsenal.
Called Prompt Global Strike, the new class of weapons would allow the United States to attack with conventional weapons targets across the globe.
According to a report Friday […]

CAIRO - Archaeologists in Egypt have unearthed several hundred bronze coins dating back to the reign of King Ptolemy, who ruled Egypt about 2,300 years ago.
Egyptian officials say the coins were found near Qarun Lake in Fayoum Oasis southwest of the Egyptian capital, Cairo.
A government statement said one side of the coins features a depiction […]

WASHINGTON - NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen says NATO must work toward nuclear disarmament, but must also have missile defense against irrational countries and players with nuclear weapons.  NATO foreign ministers meeting is being held in Tallinn, Estonia.
Secretary General Anders Rasmussen says the allies must discuss the issue of whether tactical nuclear weapons can serve […]

WARSAW - Polish interim President Bronislaw Komorowski says Poland’s presidential election will be held on June 20.
A spokesman for Mr. Komorowski said Wednesday that a second round of elections, if necessary, will be held on July 4.
The early election was triggered by the death of President Lech Kaczynski in an April 10 plane crash.  Poland’s […]

WASHINGTON - April 22nd is the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, an occasion for people to celebrate and raise awareness of the natural world.
Today with news of melting glaciers, increasingly severe droughts, floods, and storms and rising ocean levels, Earth Day celebrants around the world are marking the anniversary with new calls to combat global […]

WASHINGTON - Political experts say 2010 could be a difficult year for President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party allies in Congress.  Most analysts predict that Republicans will make gains in this year’s midterm congressional elections.  And they say the president’s popularity and his health care reform plan will be major issues in the campaign.
At […]

WASHINGTON - U.S. civil rights icon Dorothy Height has died in a Washington, D.C. hospital. She was 98.
Height served for 40 years as president of the National Council of Negro Women, taking over the post in 1957 from legendary African-American educator and activist Mary McLeod Bethune. Height stayed until her retirement four decades later. 
In a […]

LONDON - Just hours after European Union transportation ministers agreed on a plan to ease restrictions on airliner traffic, the British National Air Traffic Service reported that the eruption of the volcano in Iceland has strengthened.
A statement released late Monday said a new ash cloud is heading toward Britain.  It described the situation as unpredictable […]

WASHINGTON - Iraqi and U.S. officials say a joint military operation has killed the two top leaders of al-Qaida in Iraq.  Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki announced the deaths and showed reporters in Baghdad pictures of two bloody bodies.  The top U.S. general in Iraq also confirmed the deaths. 
The U.S. military says the two men were […]