Nation News

Dramatic pirate attacks were a regular occurrence off the coast of East Africa earlier in the year. So why has piracy fallen from the headlines in recent weeks? Have the attacks suddenly become less frequent? Read More

A New Jersey brewery is using the state's congested and often-derided turnpike to promote its beer, an idea that concerns the New Jersey Turnpike Authority and a group that opposes drinking and driving. Read More

When South Carolina's Commerce Department planned a trade mission to South America last year, Gov. Mark Sanford rejected a historic tour, requested meetings with real estate agents, and tried to make sure he would have at least an evening free in Buenos Aires. Read More

It's one of the great American summer pastimes: Pulling the car onto the driveway on a sun-drenched Saturday afternoon, lathering it up with soap, rinsing it off and watching the sudsy water flow toward the storm drain. Read More

The sister of an American journalist sentenced with a co-worker to 12 years in a North Korean labor camp said that they're seeking a pardon as their only hope for freedom. Read More

Working 90 feet above the ground, pouring buckets of concrete that would harden into a 195-foot-high dam the length of 11 football fields, a teenage Frank Wicks knew even then he wasn't on just another job. Read More

State officials will investigate accusations of racial discrimination against a suburban Philadelphia swim club that allegedly reacted to a visiting group of minority children by asking them not to return and pulling other kids out of the water. Read More

The head of U.S. Central Command in Afghanistan warned that months of fighting lie ahead in what will likely be the biggest military operation there since the American-led invasion of 2001. Read More

New York's Senate stalemate ended Thursday as it started 31 days ago, with a freshman Democrat convulsing the 62-seat house by switching sides and getting a powerful leadership post in the majority. Read More

Three gravediggers and a cemetery manager unearthed hundreds of corpses from a historic black cemetery south of Chicago, dumping some in a weeded area and double-stacking others in existing graves, in an elaborate scheme to resell the plots, authorities said Thursday. All four were charged with felonies. Read More

Sen. John Ensign said Thursday his parents gave his mistress and her family nearly $100,000 "out of concern for the well being of longtime family friends during a difficult time," providing his first public acknowledgment that the woman received payments tied to the affair. Read More

The former fiance of Gov. Sarah Palin's 18-year-old daughter says he thinks he knows why the Alaska governor is resigning _ concerns over money. Read More

An Amtrak passenger train carrying about 170 people struck a car that had skirted a gate at a road crossing near Detroit on Thursday, killing all five people in the sedan, authorities said. Read More

Members and officials of a private swimming pool in a predominantly white Philadelphia suburb reacted to a visiting group of minority children by asking them not to return and pulling other kids out of the water, a day camp director said, and the state is investigating. Read More

Do you use a sock puppet to secretly keep track of your frenemies? Read More

A Manhattan skyscraper in one of the most security-conscious parts of the city has become the scene of an unlikely missing persons mystery. Read More

State education officials on Thursday rejected a plan by a Southern California school district to use summer classes to make up for a scheduling error that could cost the district millions of dollars. Read More

A man convicted of killing two campers during a 1995 robbery of their southern Oklahoma campsite was put to death Thursday. Read More

An advertising executive's former wife who police say was held hostage by her ex-husband for hours inside his Connecticut home told a newspaper she did not expect to survive the ordeal, which ended when he allegedly set the house on fire after she escaped. Read More

A fundraiser at an upstate university has sued two senior athletic department officials, accusing them of using her as a "plaything" and trying to make her ply big donors with her sexuality. Read More