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Support is growing for former secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to take over as NFL commissioner following criticism of how the league handled the punishment of former Baltimore Ravens player Ray Rice. The Ravens swiftly canceled Rice’s five-year contract and the NFL suspended him indefinitely on Tuesday, one day after video surfaced on TMZ.com showing the running back striking his now-wife in an Atlantic City, N.J., elevator. Before the video was made public, Rice had been suspended by the league for two games. The current NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell, later called the original punishment a mistake, writing in a letter...

Russell Simmons is apologizing for a parody video of Harriet Tubman in a sex tape that appeared on his All Def Digital YouTube channel. The clip features an actress portraying Tubman having sex with her white slave master as someone films it so the abolitionist can bribe her boss. The "Harriet Tubman Sex Tape" video was posted Wednesday.

Police in Aurora, Colorado, say they've responded to an early Friday shooting at an Aurora movie theater. A hospital says it's received 20 patients relating to the shooting. Jacque Montgomery, a spokeswoman for the University of Colorado Hospital, said all the patients are suffering from gunshot wounds. Injuries range from minor to critical. KUSA: Shooting at Aurora movie theater CNN affiliates in the area report that multiple people have been shot.

Iran's navy chief warned Wednesday that his country can easily close the strategic Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, the passageway through which a sixth of the world's oil flows. It was the second such warning in two days. On Tuesday, Vice President Mohamed Reza Rahimi threatened to close the strait, cutting off oil exports, if the West imposes sanctions on Iran's oil shipments. Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2011/12/28/iran-warns-closing-strategic-hormuz-oil-route/#ixzz1huJzqZxx

MOSCOW — A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying three astronauts returning from the International Space Station touched down safely in the snow-covered steppes of Kazakhstan early Tuesday morning. NASA astronaut Michael Fossum, Russian cosmonaut Sergei Volkov and Satoshi Furukawa of Japan’s JAXA space agency landed at the break of dawn some 90 kilometers (56 miles) north of the town of Arkalyk at 8:26 a.m. (0226 GMT) after spending 165 days in space. The landing at steppe was close to its target point. NASA spokesman Josh Byerly said in the NASA television broadcast that the recovery operation was swift despite the freezing...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The six space station astronauts took shelter in lifeboats Tuesday when a piece of orbiting junk came dangerously close. The unidentified object came within 1,100 feet of the space station — closer than any piece of space junk ever, said NASA's space operations chief, Bill Gerstenmaier. Mission Control ordered the astronauts into the two Russian Soyuz capsules parked at the space station Tuesday morning. NASA got just 14 hours' notice of the close approach, not nearly enough time to move the space station out of harm's way. The call to seek shelter came around 7:30 a.m....

A 1963 Volkswagen Microbus. $198,000. here are always plenty of surprises at a Barrett-Jackson auction, and when you team one up with the vagaries of Southern California, you have a volatile mix of possible weirdness. Case in point: the highest-selling vehicle so far at the Orange County auction, and possibly the entire three-day event, is none other than a Volkswagen microbus. Oh, it’s a plenty-nice microbus, a highly coveted 23-window Samba with full-length sunroof restored to much-better-then-new condition. And microbus prices have been strong as of late. The custom 2011 Mustang GT500 built by West Coast Customs especially for the...

LONDON (AP) -- He could have stayed in teaching. That's what his parents wanted: it was the safe, secure route for a young man with working-class roots and a face few would describe as handsome.Postlethwaite had little going for him when he started in an industry where good looks - think Robert Redford or George Clooney - are valued. He had few connections, a name that was hard to pronounce, and could distinguish himself only by his talent.

Game 1: Tonight in San Francisco 6:30 p.m. (Texas time) on FOXSee the full schedule at MLB.com

From the opening verses of Mosaic, it's clear that Ricky Skaggs is fine-tuning his music, shifting his sound slightly. Skaggs is singing about his Christian faith in strong yet delicate tones. But the tunes aren't the rigorous bluegrass ones we've come to expect. Instead, he's trying out variations on pop melodies, and he frequently sets his mandolin aside so that his plaintive declarations can be heard with greater starkness. In "My Cup Runneth Over," for example, it's Peter Frampton who provides the guitar hook.

The "static kill" procedure to permanently plug the runaway oil well at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico achieved the "desired outcome," BP said Wednesday. "The well pressure is now being controlled by the hydrostatic pressure of the drilling mud, the desired outcome of the static kill procedure," the company said in a statement. The British oil giant described the news as a "significant milestone."

When his cardiologist warned him it would be tough to make the trip back to England to unveil a monument at the site of the Staplehurst Advanced Landing Ground commemorating the American and Canadian pilots who flew P-51 Mustangs from the base in World War II, Lt. Col. Bill Bullard, 90, told him one thing. “Well, not as tough as the first time I tried it,” he said. Bullard, along with his wife Birdie and daughter Linda, flew to England on June 3 to join local residents in Kent County, about an hour southeast of London, for the ceremony. “When...

A partial lunar eclipse set to occur early Saturday should look particularly stunning to observers in parts of North America thanks to an optical illusion that will make the moon look bigger than normal. The moon will pass through part of Earth's shadow, temporarily becoming dark, starting at 6:17 a.m. EDT (1017 GMT) Saturday morning. That cosmic line-up coincides with the full moon of June and a so-called "moon illusion" that, weather permitting, should offer quite a show, according to a NASA announcement. For observers in the central and western United States, the lunar eclipse will occur while the moon...

Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua has died at his presidential villa following a long illness. The government announced seven days of national mourning and said the president would be buried on Thursday. Under the constitution, Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan, in charge since February, is to be sworn in as leader. Mr Yar'Adua, 58, came to power in 2007 promising many reforms. Analysts say he made the most progress in tackling unrest in the oil-rich Niger Delta.

At least 25 people are reported to have been killed in an explosion on the Metro system in central Moscow, with a second blast coming shortly afterwards. The first blast happened at the city's central Lubyanka station, reports quoting security sources said. A second explosion happened at the Park Kultury station, Russian news agency Tass reported. Ten people were injured in the first blast, Tass said, quoting the emergencies ministry. The number of casualties at the second blast is not yet clear.

LUFKIN, TX (KTRE) – Former longtime East Texas congressman Charlie Wilson has died. Staff at Lufkin Memorial Hospital confirmed the report. He was 76. According to a Memorial Hospital press release, Wilson died after suffering from cardio pulmonary arrest. He was pronounced dead at 12:16 p.m. in the hospital’s emergency room. Wilson served in the 2nd U.S. Congressional District from 1972-1996 and was known as the “Liberal from Lufkin.” A book about his efforts in the U.S.’s covert war against Russia in Afghanistan was chronicled in the book, “Charlie Wilson’s War,” which was later made into a movie.

NEW YORK (AP) -- A young American aid worker - trapped for about 10 hours under the rubble of her mission house that was destroyed in Haiti's earthquake - has been rescued by her husband. Frank Thorp told CBS's "The Early Show" by phone from Haiti on Wednesday that he drove 100 miles to Port-au-Prince once he learned of the quake, and dug for over an hour to free his wife, Jillian, and her co-worker Charles Dietsch. The two were trapped under about a foot of concrete, he said.

Charles Krauthammer’s joining the ranks of Daily Times columnists pleased readers on the right who like his generally — though not invariably — conservative views. Those on the left are less than thrilled. I have my own reason for welcoming the doctor (he practiced and taught psychiatry before switching to speechwriting and then to commentary): He’s one of the endangered species called wordsmiths. Like master artisans working precious metals, wordsmiths shape and polish lumps of words until they gleam. Krauthammer on America’s limited activity in space: “We’ve done it with the most beautiful, intricate, complicated — and ultimately hopelessly impractical...

On Saturday, visitors to the National Museum of the Pacific War in Fredericksburg were treated to a re-enactment of some of the weapons, tactics and strategies used to win War World II. “Give me an army of West Point graduates and I'll win a battle. Give me a handful of Texas Aggies, and I'll win the war.” General George S. Patton quotes (American General in World War I and II, 1885-1945)