Nation News

A man opened fire with a rifle Tuesday at a drug-testing laboratory in suburban Portland, killing a female employee and wounding two other workers before fatally shooting himself, police said. The gunman and the dead woman apparently had a "relationship," Tualatin Police Chief Kent Barker said. He did not elaborate. Read More

The mastermind of the 2002 sniper attacks that killed 10 in the Washington, D.C., region has been executed. Read More

As of Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009, at least 4,362 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. Read More

The families of three Americans accused of espionage in Iran are attempting the delicate feat of keeping a spotlight trained on the plight of their loved ones while trying to avoid the tangled politics of the tense U.S.-Iran relationship. Read More

A man wounded in last week's Orlando office shooting frantically told an emergency dispatcher to hurry because he worried the gunman would return, 911 tapes released by police Tuesday show. Read More

An anti-abortion opponent says he's the one who killed a Kansas abortion provider _ and did it because it was necessary to save lives. But one of his attorneys says there's no such thing as a "necessity defense" in state law, and that is not the strategy the defense team plans to present at his trial. Read More

John Allen Muhammad executed for sniper attacks that killed 10 around D.C. during 3-week spree Read More

A Mormon church official says the faith supports a proposed pair of Salt Lake City ordinances that would make it illegal to discriminate against gays in housing and employment matters. Read More

The first polygamist sect member to face criminal trial following the raid of a West Texas ranch was sentenced to 10 years in prison Tuesday for sexually assaulting an underage girl with whom he had a so-called "spiritual marriage." Read More

Authorities say a 22-year-old man accused of posing as a student at two Arizona high schools so he could earn a basketball scholarship has been charged with three counts of forgery and 11 counts of sexual conduct with a minor. Read More

Seven Fort Lewis soldiers killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan were "decent, ordinary, yet extraordinary" young men to whom the nation owes more than it can repay, Vice President Joe Biden told a memorial service Tuesday. Read More

A fifth foreign mission to the United Nations has received an envelope with a suspicious white powder inside, police say. Read More

All or parts of four prison complexes are among a dozen state properties on a shortened list of facilities being proposed for sale-leaseback refinancing to help balance Arizona's state budget. Read More

It was a heartwarming story: A 200-year-old general store suffers a fire, the owner can't afford to rebuild it and the town's historical society steps in to buy the building, hoping to make it the commercial and social hub of town once again. Read More

After weeks of uncertainty and pleas for action by Gov. David Paterson, New York's Senate failed to vote on a bill legalizing same-sex marriage during a special session Tuesday. Read More

Police said they were investigating what led to an unfounded report of a hostage situation that prompted a lockdown and office building evacuation near the Missouri governor's mansion Tuesday. Read More

A 42-year-old father of an Army veteran upset by the treatment of U.S. military personnel sneaked a disassembled shotgun into a middle school just after classes began Tuesday, put it together in a bathroom, then held the principal hostage for more than two hours before surrendering without firing a shot, police said. Read More

Boulder County's district attorney has decided no criminal charges are warranted against the sheriff who disclosed that child welfare workers were involved in the investigation in the runaway balloon case. Read More

Bernard Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner and one-time candidate for Homeland Security chief, was freed from jail Tuesday for the holidays to await sentencing on federal crimes. Read More

A police watchdog says he found problems in a third of the internal investigations of Los Angeles police officers accused of racial profiling and other kinds of bias. Read More