Nation News

Relentless rain drenched much of the Atlantic seaboard Thursday, pelting communities from North Carolina northward with gusty winds and heavy rains, inundating streets, stranding drivers and causing three deaths in hard-hit Virginia. Read More

The Army psychiatrist accused in the Fort Hood shootings was charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder in the military's legal system, making him eligible for the death penalty if convicted, officials said Thursday. Read More

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday he will lead an intensive push for new ways to defuse the threat from homemade bombs, the crude ambush weapons that account for eight in 10 casualties in Afghanistan. Read More

Federal prosecutors Thursday took steps to seize four U.S. mosques and a Fifth Avenue skyscraper owned by a nonprofit Muslim organization long suspected of being secretly controlled by the Iranian government. Read More

A man charged with killing his dementia-plagued father by dragging him into the ocean has reached a plea deal, his attorney said Thursday, in a case that illuminated the stresses faced by those who care for people with Alzheimer's disease. Read More

Authorities say a van carrying members of a Colorado church group overturned on black ice early Thursday in Eastern Oregon, killing one person and injuring 15, some of them critically. Read More

With his state under an emergency declaration because of heavy rain and floods Thursday, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine was in Arkansas for a Democratic fundraiser. Read More

President Barack Obama is in Alaska for his first visit ever to the state, albeit a very short one. Read More

A day-by-day look at President Barack Obama's trip to Asia: Read More

The parents accused of pulling a spectacular hoax by reporting that their 6-year-old son had floated away aboard a helium balloon have agreed to plead guilty in a deal that could send them both to jail but protect the wife from deportation. Read More

A mother of seven is accused of running a house of horrors for pets at her suburban Long Island home, forcing her children to help torture them and burying at least 20 dogs in her backyard _ animals neighbors now fear were beloved pets that mysteriously disappeared over the years. Read More

Authorities say a woman was fatally stabbed soon after two police officers took a domestic violence report and left her apartment. Read More

The discovery of 11 victims of an alleged serial killer, most of them poor, drug-addicted black women, has prompted calls for Cleveland police to respond faster and devote more resources to missing-persons cases. Read More

Authorities have dropped the case against a Tennessee father arrested in Japan when he snatched his children from his ex-wife, the man's spokesman said Thursday. Read More

Delta Air Lines has suspended a pilot who was charged with trying to strike officers with his plane at a Georgia airport. Read More

ACORN has been cut off by banks, the government and most of its private foundation funders, severely hampering its housing operations and raising the possibility that it will not survive in its current form, according to a lawsuit the group filed Thursday against the U.S. government. Read More

Henry Ford would have hated 2009, and not just because it's been a tough year to sell cars. Read More

An officer has reportedly been seriously injured in a collision between a school bus carrying students and a police patrol car in New York's Hudson Valley. Read More

Christopher Monfort waged a "one-man war" against law enforcement starting with the firebombing of four police vehicles and continuing even after the fatal shooting of a Seattle officer on Halloween, a prosecutor said Thursday in charging him with a crime that could bring the death penalty. Read More

Feds move to seize four U.S. mosques and New York skyscraper owned by Muslim group with alleged ties to Iran Read More