Latest Breaking News Headlines For Monday Dec 4, 2006

Latest Breaking News Headlines For Monday Dec 4, 2006

A quick finish to Minnesota's U.S. Senate race seemed unlikely Thursday when the city of Minneapolis was given an open-ended extension to locate ballots counted on Election Day that have since gone missing. About 130...

Barack Obama's presidential campaign raised $104 million in the weeks around Election Day, a grand finale to a successful bid that shattered fundraising records. Overall, Obama raised nearly $750 million during his...

Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison on Thursday took the first step toward a run for governor, setting the stage for a contentious challenge in 2010 against fellow Republican Rick Perry, the longest-serving leader in state...

Republican Sen. Norm Coleman is withdrawing 650 ballot challenges that his campaign lodged in the U.S. Senate recount. The incumbent's move Thursday surpasses one made by his opponent, Democrat Al Franken, who withdrew...

Still popular in Florida, former Gov. Jeb Bush said Wednesday that he's interested in the seat Sen. Mel Martinez is giving up, and the field of possible candidates could quickly narrow to make way for the president's...

Gov. Sarah Palin has added to her financial disclosure forms two free trips that she took nearly two years ago but failed to report. Palin, who was Republican presidential candidate John McCain's running mate, made the...

Democrat Al Franken withdrew 633 challenges to ballots Wednesday in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race in what could be a first step toward a quicker conclusion to the recount. Franken's attorney, Marc Elias, said many more...

Democrat Charlie Brown conceded defeat to Republican state Sen. Tom McClintock on Wednesday in their hard-fought race for California's 4th District House seat, leaving only four House races still unsettled. Brown...

A Minnesota man has pleaded guilty to answering an online advertisement for baby-sitting work and then using the client's child to make a pornographic video. Aaron Jay Lemon admitted Wednesday to producing the video in...

For the final time as president, George W. Bush led the countdown Thursday night to lighting the nearly 42-foot Christmas tree that overlooks the White House. "Everybody join. Five, four, three, two, one," Bush shouted...

A central California couple was charged Thursday with kidnapping and torturing a teenager that authorities say was sometimes kept shackled inside their home and abused with a baseball bat, belt and knife. The boy's...

Authorities say a husband-and-wife burglary team robbed about 60 homes in rural eastern Missouri and deputies discovered 100 guns at the home of the man accused of selling the stolen loot online. All the houses were...

President-elect Barack Obama thanked his Illinois finance committee on Thursday night for helping him win the election, telling them it was not the end of their work but the beginning. Obama made the remarks at a...

Before evangelist Tony Alamo's arrest on federal sex charges, three girls who lived at his Arkansas compound told an FBI agent that he had sexually abused them, and one said he had threatened to have "someone take care...

A Texas jury has convicted a man of capital murder in the stabbing deaths of his wife and her two young sons. Robert Sparks of Dallas was found guilty Thursday in the deaths of Chare Agnew, and her sons, Raeqwon Agnew...

The teenage son of former California Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez acted in self-defense in a confrontation that left a college student dead from a stab wound, his lawyer said Thursday after his client and three other...

A security pact with a timetable for pulling U.S. forces from Iraq won final government approval Thursday, even as suicide bombers killed 17 people and wounded more than 100. Two Americans were among the dead. The...

Police in northern China have detained three school officials after 11 schoolgirls died of carbon monoxide poisoning from using a charcoal heater in their dormitory, state media said. A dozen fourth-grade girls were...

Fidel Castro said Thursday that President-elect Barack Obama is a man Cuba can talk with and indicated that communist officials would be willing to meet with him wherever he wants. But the former Cuban leader expressed...

A Pakistani militant group apparently used an Indian operative as far back as 2007 to scout targets for the elaborate plot against India's financial capital, authorities said Thursday, a blow to Indian officials who...

Knut the superstar polar bear turns two on Friday looking nothing like the button-eyed ball of white fluff who captured hearts around the world. The star of the Berlin Zoo is a fully grown bear with yellowish fur who,...

Mexico sent home the first group of illegal Cuban migrants under a new accord aimed at cutting off an increasingly violent human-trafficking route to the United States, the government said Thursday. The 41 migrants...

Countries around the world are looking to Barack Obama for leadership in reaching a global climate treaty next year, but no nation will be able to singlehandedly deliver a final agreement, a senior U.N. official said...

Thirteen bullet-riddled bodies were found along a dirt road Thursday in Mexico's Sinaloa state, home to the powerful cartel of the same name. The victims, whose hands were bound, were found near the town of Coyotitlan...

Oil prices were steady near four-year lows below $44 a barrel Friday in Asia as more bad U.S. economic news soured the outlook for global growth and demand for crude. Light, sweet crude for January delivery was down 3...

The CEO of Fairfax Media Limited, the publisher of leading newspapers in Australia and New Zealand, resigned Friday after three years leading the company. David Kirk gave no explanation for stepping down, but the move...

President-elect Barack Obama's pick for commerce secretary, Bill Richardson, got a warm welcome Thursday during a visit to Mexico, where government officials said they doubted Obama would follow through on a campaign...

Roughly 900 workers at the Dominican Republic's largest nickel mine will lose their jobs due to high production costs and a drop in the metal's value, international mining company Xstrata said Thursday. Xstrata Nickel...

Nine toy companies, including Mattel Inc., agreed to pay a total of nearly $1.8 million to settle a lawsuit over Chinese-made toys tainted with lead, California state and local officials said Thursday. The lawsuit...

For more than two decades, many autoworkers who lose their jobs have been able to enjoy one of the best unemployment benefits in the nation: receiving nearly full paychecks without even leaving home. Since the 1980s,...

The Rocky Mountain News, Colorado's oldest newspaper, was put up for sale Thursday after its owner, E.W. Scripps Co., said it lost about $11 million on the business in the first nine months of the year. Rich Boehne,...

If you're looking for a mortgage, Uncle Sam may be the only game in town. The government has already increased its share of the mortgage market to around 90 percent from around 55 percent last year as Wall Street licks...

Jennifer Hudson says she's honored to be a Grammy nominee. The Oscar-winning actress and singer, who has been in seclusion since the killings of her mother, brother and nephew, was nominated Wednesday for four Grammy...

Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines is the target of a defamation lawsuit by the stepfather of one of three 8-year-old boys slain in 1993. Maines spoke out for three people convicted of the slayings and alleged the...

Police are seeking two people they want to question about the shooting of actor Mark Ruffalo's brother. The Beverly Hills Police Department identified two people as "persons of interest" Thursday afternoon. Police said...

For all the disclosures former President Richard Nixon makes in "Frost/Nixon," director Ron Howard has one of his own. Howard says he voted for Nixon in 1972. "Yeah I did," Howard said at a discussion following a...

Former "Soul Train" host Don Cornelius has pleaded not guilty to spousal battery charges. Court records show Cornelius entered the plea to five misdemeanor counts through his attorney Thursday. The 72-year-old...

More bad news from the book industry: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt announced that it is "streamlining" its educational business, and eliminating jobs in both its education and general divisions. HarperCollins and Pearson,...

Erik Estrada has returned to Muncie to take part in overnight police patrols in the city where he starred in the short-lived reality series "Armed & Famous." The former star of the 1970s motorcycle cop drama "CHiPs"...

General Electric Co.'s media and theme park subsidiary, NBC Universal, this week laid off about 500 employees _ about 3 percent of its work force of 15,000 _ as part of a plan to trim $500 million next year, a person...

SHELBYVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--In 1914, Ernest Henry Shackleton led an expedition to cross the entire continent of Antarctica, but wound up shipwrecked on an uninhabited island. To rescue his team, Shackleton and a few of the...

MILL VALLEY, Calif. (BP)--At a time when an understanding of diversity has become essential in today's society, Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary hosted "Intersect," a week-long event on the seminary's Mill...

WAKE FOREST, N.C. (BP)--Four Southern Baptist Convention presidents were among the "Real Evangelism" speakers at a conference hosted by Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.The conference, sponsored by evangelist...

WAKE FOREST, N.C. (BP)--Although it has been many years since Francis Schaeffer taught and shared his life with believers and seekers alike, his legacy of connecting the culture to Christ continues among a new...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (BP)--When James Walker hears of another person converted to faith in Christ after years of deception in a cult, he rejoices at the news. But if that new believer is eager to discard newsletters and...

NEW ORLEANS (BP)--For students and their families, the move to a seminary campus brings many new challenges. Seminary families often are faced with tighter finances, smaller living quarters and the stress of theological...

JOS, Nigeria (BP)--At least 12 Nigerian Baptists were killed and five Baptist churches burned during Thanksgiving weekend riots sparked by local election results in Jos, Nigeria.International Mission Board workers in...

Theological conservatives upset by liberal views of U.S. Episcopalians and Canadian Anglicans formed a rival North American province Wednesday, in a long-developing rift over the Bible that erupted when Episcopalians...

When you're smiling, the whole world really does smile with you. A paper being published Friday in a British medical journal concludes that happiness is contagious _ and that people pass on their good cheer even to...

Many of the thousands of troops who suffered traumatic brain injuries in Iraq and Afghanistan are at risk of long-term health problems including depression and Alzheimer's-like dementia, but it's impossible to predict...

Measles deaths worldwide declined dramatically to about 200,000 a year, continuing a successful trend, global health authorities reported Thursday. From 2000 to 2007, annual measles deaths dropped 74 percent, largely...

Consumers should be wary of Web sites from clinics that offer stem cell treatments, says a study that found a lack of firm medical evidence to back up their claims. The Web sites in the study generally portrayed their...

British doctors conducted surgery to separate twins joined at the chest on Tuesday, hospital officials said. Stephen Cox, a spokesman for the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London, said the decision to...

Doctors-in-training are still too exhausted, says a new report that calls on hospitals to let them have a nap. Regulations that capped the working hours of bleary-eyed young doctors came just five years ago, limiting...

Unique brain wave patterns, spotted for the first time in autistic children, may help explain why they have so much trouble communicating. Using an imaging helmet that resembles a big salon hair dryer, researchers...

Almost one in five young American adults has a personality disorder that interferes with everyday life, and even more abuse alcohol or drugs, researchers reported Monday in the most extensive study of its kind. The...

A once-high-flying Silicon Valley financier and former co-owner of the NHL's Nashville Predators was charged Thursday with fraud for allegedly bilking investors out of more than $100 million. Prosecutors filed a single...

If activist investor Carl Icahn is going to profit from his $1.8 billion bet on Yahoo Inc., the billionaire needs the struggling Internet company's stock to more than double in value. Icahn, who muscled his way on to...

Microsoft Corp. on Thursday tapped a former Yahoo search executive to lead its online push, adding to the intrigue surrounding a possible search partnership between the two rivals. Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft named...

NASA is delaying a mission to Mars that already had been over budget and will get even more costly. The launch of the massive roving robot with a rock-zapping laser was pushed back Thursday from next year until 2011,...

Shares of Red Hat Inc. climbed Thursday after a Jefferies analyst upgraded the software distributor, noting its 100 percent recurring revenue stream, which puts it in a good position to weather the 2009 "spending...

NASA has set a May date for its space shuttle mission to fix the Hubble Space Telescope for a final time. The space agency Thursday announced that it is aiming to launch the shuttle Atlantis on May 12 for what would be...

Electronic books are the persistent wallflowers of the gadget world. Consumers have snubbed them again and again in favor of a 500-year-old technology: ink printed on paper. Mindful of the dominance of paper, devices...

Online spending at U.S. retailers on Monday jumped 15 percent over with the comparable day a year ago to $846 million, comScore said Thursday, as consumers sought out bargains in a tough economy. The Monday after...

A cold front packing showers stretched from New England to the Gulf of Mexico early Thursday, while the Rockies were snowy and much of the rest of the West woke to a clear day. Cold air was pouring over the Great Lakes...

Rain, snow or a mix of both were forecast for the Great Lakes region, the upper Midwest, the Plains, the Rockies and the Mississippi Valley on Wednesday, while the East and West coasts were expected to be largely dry. ...

Two winter storm systems packing snow and strong winds were colliding over the Rocky Mountains early Tuesday, while the South and West Coast were forecast to stay dry and calm. The Rockies were to be hit with a one-two...

Wintry weather continued Monday across much of the Great Lakes and Northeast. Lake-effect snow blanketed much of Michigan, Indiana, northeastern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. In the Northeast, the system produced...

Wintry weather was expected across the Great Lakes, Ohio Valley, and the Northeast on Monday. Lake-effect snow showers were forecast for the Great Lakes and the Northeast. Michigan, eastern Wisconsin, and northern...

Gusty winds pushed cold, northern air across Lake Michigan Sunday and triggered a swath of lake-effect snow showers over Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin. Meanwhile, a mixture of light rain and snow showers fell over...

Rain was forecast along the East Coast on Sunday and the West Coast was expected to be mostly dry, while more snow was likely in the Rockies. The heaviest rain was forecast for the Southeast and the mid-Atlantic. As...

Rain helped to ease drought concerns in parts of the Southeast, but continued precipitation pre-empted flood warnings along the gulf coast of Florida. The rest of the country remained mostly dry, except for some rain...