AP - An 89-year-old woman used an ax to break into her own home after she locked herself out on a patio hemmed in by deep snow. "I had to bang the glass four times with the ax before it broke," said Geraldine "Gerry" Palmer, who turns 90 this weekend.

AP - A Mexican paleontologist was cleaning up after lunch with a group of schoolchildren she'd been teaching to dig for bones in northeastern Mexico when she found the dinosaur bone. "I was basically collecting trash," Martha Carolina Aguillon Martinez recalled at a news conference Tuesday.

AFP - Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered an historic apology to the Aboriginal people on Wednesday for injustices committed over two centuries of white settlement.

Reuters - Democrat Barack Obama hoped to extend his winning streak over Hillary Clinton on Tuesday in a tight Democratic presidential race as voters made their choices in three battlegrounds around the U.S. capital.

Reuters - U.S. President George W. Bush condemned as "deeply offensive" on Tuesday a spate of incidents involving the display of hangman's nooses, a potent symbol of racist lynchings and hatred of blacks in the United States.

Reuters - Six top mortgage companies on Tuesday launched a program aimed at staving off foreclosure for seriously delinquent borrowers in the hopes that new, more affordable loan terms can be worked out.

Reuters - General Motors Corp said on Tuesday it would offer a new round of buyouts to all of its U.S. factory workers as it posted a quarterly loss that underscored the pressure the top U.S. automaker faces in its slumping home market.

Reuters - Five years after her son was snatched by Colombian guerrillas, Lynne Stansell hopes this could be the last anniversary she will have to spend waiting for news he has finally been freed by his rebel captors.

Reuters - Japan's prime minister Tuesday denounced the suspected rape of a 14-year-old girl by a U.S. Marine on the southern island of Okinawa, an episode with echoes of a 1995 case that jolted the U.S.-Japan alliance.

Reuters - Sharia law is understood and applied in such varied ways across the Muslim world that it is difficult to say exactly what it is and how it could fit into a western legal context, according to experts on Islam.

Reuters - The Air Force mistakenly flew nuclear weapons across the United States last year as a result of eroding discipline spawned by a diminished strategic focus on nuclear weapons, officials said on Tuesday.

AP - East Timor declared a state of emergency Tuesday after attacks on the country's top leaders in a failed coup left the president in "extremely serious" condition with gunshot wounds.

Reuters - Top Japanese officials on Tuesday deplored the suspected rape of a 14-year-old girl by a U.S. Marine on the southern island of Okinawa, an episode with echoes of a 1995 incident that jolted the U.S.-Japan security alliance.

AP - Resisting calls from Barack Obama to release her income tax returns, Hillary Rodham Clinton said Monday she would only do so if she secures the Democratic presidential nomination and contended her rival had been less than candid about his relationship with major campaign contributors.

AP - A Defense Department analyst and a former engineer for Boeing Co. were accused Monday in separate spy cases with helping deliver military secrets to the Chinese government, the Justice Department said.

AP - A former police officer accused of killing his pregnant lover sobbed on the witness stand Monday that he accidentally struck her when she wouldn't let him out of her house.

AP - Living to 100 is easier than you might think. Surprising new research suggests that even people who develop heart disease or diabetes late in life have a decent shot at reaching the century mark.

AP - The Pentagon has charged six detainees at Guantanamo Bay with murder and war crimes in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks. Officials said Monday they'll seek the death penalty in what would be the first capital trials under the terrorism-era military tribunal system.

AFP - A US defense official, an ex-Boeing engineer and two others were charged Monday with spying for China involving sensitive military and aerospace secrets, including on the space shuttle.

AP - Against overwhelming odds, Mike Huckabee keeps brushing off calls to drop his presidential bid for the good of the Republican Party. The former Arkansas governor and ordained Baptist minister is following in the footsteps of past spoilers such as Republican Ronald Reagan in 1976 and Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in 1980, who both pressed uphill primary challenges to the limits.

AP - The estate of "Lord of the Rings" creator J.R.R. Tolkien is suing the film studio that released the trilogy based on his books, claiming the company hasn't paid it a penny from the estimated $6 billion the films have grossed worldwide.

Reuters - Barack Obama on Monday rode a weekend hot streak into the next round of presidential contests, but rival Hillary Clinton shrugged off the setbacks and expressed confidence about her prospects.

Reuters - A major outage hit BlackBerry users in North America on Monday afternoon, cutting off wireless e-mail for everyone from busy executives to political campaign staff on the eve of three U.S. presidential primaries.

AP - John Rocker claims he flunked a drug test ordered by Major League Baseball in 2000 and that he, Alex Rodriguez and other Texas Rangers were advised by management and union doctors following a spring training lecture on how to effectively use steroids.

Reuters - Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Monday he backed a brief pause in U.S. troop cuts in Iraq once an initial pullout of five combat brigades has been completed in July.

AFP - East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta was Tuesday in a serious but stable condition after surgery overnight for gunshot wounds from an assassination attempt that plunged the nation into a fresh crisis.

Reuters - Russian bomber aircraft approached a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Pacific on Saturday and were intercepted by American fighter jets, a U.S. defense official said on Monday.

Reuters - Non-Hispanic whites will become a minority in the United States by 2050, with immigrants and their children driving 82 percent of U.S. population growth in coming years, a new study said on Monday.

Reuters - The Pentagon on Monday charged the alleged planner of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and five others with murder and conspiracy and asked that they be executed if convicted.

Reuters - A former Boeing engineer was arrested on Monday on charges of stealing trade secrets for China about several aerospace programs, including the Space Shuttle, the U.S. Justice Department said.

AP - Barack Obama defeated Hillary Rodham Clinton in Maine presidential caucuses Sunday, grabbing a majority of delegates as the state's Democrats overlooked the snowy weather and turned out in heavy numbers for municipal gatherings.

AP - Amy Winehouse may have been physically absent from the Grammy awards on Sunday, but her presence was strong as the famously troubled singer won four awards, including song of the year for her autobiographical hit "Rehab."

AP - Search crews recovered another body Sunday from a sugar refinery devastated by a massive explosion, raising the number of confirmed deaths to six, the state's top elected fire official said.

Reuters - East Timor President Jose Ramos-Horta was stable after he was shot in the stomach during an attack on his Dili home by rebel soldiers, Foreign Minister Zacarias da Costa said on Monday.

AP - An overnight fire destroyed a 610-year-old landmark that was considered the top national treasure, officials said Monday. Police said the cause of the blaze was unclear but one official said arson was suspected.

AP - The Writers Guild of America moved swiftly Sunday toward a resolution of its three-month-old strike, with guild leaders deciding to recommend a tentative contract to members and ask them to vote on a quick end to the walkout.

AP - One of Brian McNamee's lawyers said Sunday he believed the Justice Department will open a criminal investigation into Roger Clemens' denials of doping.

AFP - East Timor's President Jose Ramos-Horta was shot and wounded in an attack by a rebel group at his residence early Monday while the fugitive leader of the group was killed, UN officials said.

Reuters - British singer-songwriter Amy Winehouse won the Grammy for best new artist on Sunday, bringing her tally for the ceremony to three statuettes.

AP - Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is crying foul after John McCain's apparent victory in the Washington caucuses on Saturday.

AP - Democratic Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton replaced campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle with longtime aide Maggie Williams on Sunday, engineering a shake-up in a presidential campaign struggling to overcome rival Sen. Barack Obama's financial and political strengths.

Reuters - As she struggles to blunt Barack Obama's growing momentum, Democrat Hillary Clinton shuffled the top of her campaign staff on Sunday ahead of this week's U.S. presidential nominating contests, while Republican John McCain's march hit a few bumps in the road.

AP - Car bombs and gunmen struck new U.S. allies, police and civilians Sunday in northern Iraq, killing as many as 53 people. The spate of attacks came even as the American military released a captured diary and another document they say show al-Qaida in Iraq cracking under a Sunni revolt against its brutal tactics.

AFP - Democrat Hillary Clinton shook up her campaign Sunday after a string of staggering losses in a bid to stem a groundswell of support for rival Barack Obama in their bitter White House race.

Reuters - Officials in the famously liberal California town of Berkeley have stirred a national fuss by telling U.S. Marine Corps recruiters they aren't welcome anymore and by aiding those protesting against them.

Reuters - Union leaders for striking Hollywood writers voted on Sunday to formally endorse a deal with studios to end their bruising three-month-old labor clash, calling an immediate halt to picketing and paving the way for writers to return to work by mid-week.

Reuters - Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday the NATO alliance was at risk if it became split between members willing and unwilling to fight as he appealed to Europeans to support the war in Afghanistan.