Nation News

Former top executives at Blackwater Worldwide say the U.S. security contractor sent about $1 million to its Iraq office with the intention of paying off officials in the country who were angry about the fatal shootings of 17 civilians by Blackwater employees, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Read More

John Allen Muhammad, the mastermind behind the sniper attacks that left 10 dead, was executed Tuesday as relatives of the victims watched, reliving the killing spree that terrorized the Washington, D.C., area for three weeks in October 2002. Read More

With a historic endorsement from the Mormon church, the Salt Lake City Council unanimously passed a pair of ordinances making it illegal to discriminate against gays in housing and employment. Read More

Peter Francis Storer Read More

The 37-year-old son of Washington state's lieutenant governor has been released from a Seattle hospital, while the man accused of shooting him remains in critical condition. Read More

San Francisco supervisors have overturned the mayor's veto of a controversial ordinance involving how the city deals with illegal immigrant minors facing felony charges. Read More

A woman was killed and two of her co-workers were injured when the woman's estranged husband opened fire Tuesday at a drug-testing laboratory in suburban Portland before turning the gun on himself, police said. Read More

A pregnant woman was repeatedly beaten with a collapsible police baton before a "cutting instrument" was used to slice open her abdomen and remove her fetus, a detective testified Tuesday. Read More

A man who was arrested but later released in connection with the rape of a 16-year-old girl outside a high school homecoming dance in California says he didn't take part in the attack, but was trying to help the girl. Read More

More than 400 students escaped a three-alarm fire that heavily damaged a southeast Portland elementary school. Read More

Upset by the treatment of U.S. military personnel, a 42-year-old father of an Army veteran 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

The American Civil Liberties Union has dropped a lawsuit against the Transportation Security Administration that claimed a man was wrongly detained the St. Louis airport because he was carrying about $4,700 in cash. Read More

One worker was killed and another injured Tuesday when a crane tipped over at the construction site of a Kansas City, Mo., performing arts center, police said. Read More

An anti-abortion activist 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

An Aurora man convicted in the disappearance and presumed death of his daughter was sentenced Tuesday to 114 years behind bars. Read More

A Marine reservist accused of attacking a Greek Orthodox priest with a tire iron after apparently calling him a terrorist was actually defending himself after being sexually attacked by the cleric, his defense attorney said Tuesday. Read More

No criminal charges will be brought against a veteran marine safety officer who was piloting a boat that struck and killed a junior lifeguard near the Huntington Beach Pier in Southern California. Read More

As of Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009, at least 836 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The department last updated its figures Tuesday at 10 a.m. EST. 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