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Child's body found near missing Fla. girl's home Associated Press Writer Mark Wangrin, Associated Press Writer – 57 mins ago AP – Members of the Orange County Sheriffs Department investigate an area where the skeletal remains of a … Slideshow: Mother accused of killing missing Fla. girl Play Video Video: Child's body found near missing Fla. girl's home AP ORLANDO, Fla. – The skeletal remains of a small child were found Thursday in woods less than a half-mile from the Orlando home of a missing 3-year-old girl, but officials could not immediately say whether they belonged to the toddler. A...

Metrolink #111 from Union Station going to Moorpark has collided with freight. Two dead. At least 23 injured, some critically. Three had to be resusitated. Still working on getting people out.

Could Clinton have Palin-proofed Dems? Glenn Thrush, Martin Kady II Wed Sep 10, 5:32 AM ET Republican Rep. Candice S. Miller says Barack Obama had only one shot at Palin-proofing the Democratic ticket — and he missed it when he passed over Hillary Rodham Clinton as his running mate. “Every woman in America knows what Barack Obama did to Hillary Clinton: He looked at her and thought, ‘There’s no way I’m doing that,’”

<p>MIAMI - A man who authorities said was keeping weapons and military-style gear in his hotel room and car appeared in court Thursday on charges he threatened to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Raymond Hunter Geisel, 22, was arrested by the Secret Service on Saturday in Miami and was ordered held at Miami's downtown detention center without bail Thursday by a federal magistrate. A Secret Service affidavit charges that Geisel made the threat during a training class for bail bondsmen in Miami in late July. According to someone else in the 48-member class, Geisel allegedly referred to Obama with a racial epithet and continued, "If he gets elected, I'll assassinate him myself." Obama was most recently in Florida on Aug. 1-2 but did not visit the South Florida area. Another person in the class quoted Geisel as saying that "he hated George W. Bush and that he wanted to put a bullet in the president's head," according to the Secret Service. Geisel denied in a written statement to a Secret Service agent that he ever made those threats, and the documents don't indicate that he ever took steps to carry out any assassination. He was charged only with threatening Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee, but not for any threat against President Bush. Geisel's court-appointed attorney declined comment. The charge of threatening a major candidate for president or vice president carries a maximum prison sentence of five years. The Obama campaign declined comment Thursday on the alleged threat. In the interview with a Secret Service agent, Geisel said "if he wanted to kill Senator Obama he simply would shoot him with a sniper rifle, but then he claimed that he was just joking,"</p>

Olympic gold medalist and outspoken Darfur activist Joey Cheek has had his visa revoked by the Chinese embassy, hours before the speedskating champion was set to fly to China. And he wasn't even planning on wearing a mask when he got there. Chinese officials don't need a reason to revoke anyone's visa but, in their eyes, they had plenty of reasons to snatch Cheek's. He is the founder of Team Darfur, a group of 70 athletes whose goal it is to raise global awareness of the human-rights violations taking part in the Darfur region of Sudan. China's military, economic and...

Execution prompts concern for detained Mexicans By JORGE VARGAS, Associated Press Writer 14 minutes ago NUEVO LAREDO, Mexico - Mexico is protesting the execution of one of its citizens in Texas despite a world court ruling for a new hearing, expressing concern for the rights of other Mexicans detained in the United States. Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said it sent a note of protest to the State Department about Jose Medellin's case, which drew international attention because of allegations that Medellin wasn't allowed to consult the Mexican consulate for legal help following his arrest. Texas executed Medellin, 33, late Tuesday...

Starved, disabled girl was failed at every turn By KATHY MATHESON, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 2 minutes ago PHILADELPHIA - For days before Danieal Kelly died in a fetid, airless room — made stifling hot by a midsummer heat wave — the bedridden teenager begged for something to drink until she could muster only one word: water. ADVERTISEMENT Unable to help herself because of her cerebral palsy, she wasted away from malnutrition and maggot-infested bedsores that ate her flesh. She died alone on a putrid mattress in her mother's home, the floor covered in feces. She was 14 but...

Big one. Not sure where centered.

Interesting grass roots piece about a protest this weekend at a neighboring town. Labelled "the safest city in the country", Thousand Oaks' average income is in the six digits. I was pretty amazed to learn there was even a day laborer center THERE since they don't even allow RV's on the streets.

I live next to the church in the caretakers house. Often people show up at the church to ask for things, food, gas money, etc. Sometimes I can help, sometimes not. Often I just make them a sandwich and that's plenty. A couple years ago I had a guy come by with a broken windshield and asked for help citing he was from another congregation in another state. We helped him and found out later he wasn't with the congregation, but it was no big deal. A couple months later he resurfaced and offered us a car. One of the...

Gore Wins the Nobel. But Will He Run? By ERIC POOLEY 2 hours, 8 minutes ago For the past year, Al Gore has gone about his considerable business without showing much interest in running for president. While picking up an Oscar and an Emmy, publishing a very smart book and playing host at a global concert for the planet, he's never done more than tease the idea. And yet all that time, the leaders of the Draft Gore movement have been clinging to a single fervid dream: that Gore would win the Nobel Peace Prize and use it to catapult...

At least one white male voter is planning to return to the Democrats' fold in 2008.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - What does Democrat Hillary Clinton's laugh have in common with Republican Rudy Giuliani's cell phone? Both are causing waves on the U.S. presidential campaign trail for the leading candidates in each party. For Clinton, her tendency to burst out in a giggle during some public appearances has generated political tongue-wagging. The New York senator, often seen as an overly serious candidate, has been showing some personality lately. She laughed at times during questioning on Sunday morning television shows more than a week ago and then hooted with laughter when asked to respond to a critical comment from...

I need to vent a second. I believe in certain things. I believe in the right to carry a gun. I'm not posturing or showboating, but I can shoot. I've owned hunting dogs. I love all dogs. I rescue dogs. Right now I have 6 dogs. Silly chihuahuas to labordors. I actually worked for the USAF teaching women to shoot. Women who went into combat under cover. I love a good turkey shoot. And I joined a gun forum once. Ick. I think that we have a problem with the border. That's my second biggest political concern. I'm a single...

Health insurance premiums rise 6.1 pct. By EMILY FREDRIX, AP Business Writer 1 hour, 52 minutes ago Health insurance premiums paid by workers and their employers rose an average of 6.1 percent this year, outpacing inflation and pay increases and taking a bigger chunk out of families' budgets, according to a new survey. Premiums for employer-sponsored health insurance for the average family topped $12,000 — with employees picking up about one-fourth of that cost — although the increase in premiums slowed for a fourth straight year. Insurance costs probably will rise again next year, according to the survey released Tuesday...

In 9/11 remembrance, a turning to good deeds By Alexandra Marks Mon Sep 10, 4:00 AM ET NEW YORK - On Sept. 11, Jacob Sundberg of San Antonio has pledged to make eye contact and smile at everyone he meets. Kaitlin Ulrich will bring goody baskets to the police and fire departments in and around Philadelphia. And 100 volunteers from New York – 9/11 firefighters and family members among them – are going to Groesbeck, Texas, to rebuild a house destroyed by a tornado last December. ADVERTISEMENT This is a minute sampling of the hundreds of thousands of people who...

Gay Unions Sanctioned in Medieval Europe Jeanna Bryner LiveScience Staff Writer LiveScience.com Mon Aug 27, 12:00 PM ET Civil unions between male couples existed around 600 years ago in medieval Europe, a historian now says. Historical evidence, including legal documents and gravesites, can be interpreted as supporting the prevalence of homosexual relationships hundreds of years ago, said Allan Tulchin of Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. If accurate, the results indicate socially sanctioned same-sex unions are nothing new, nor were they taboo in the past. “Western family structures have been much more varied than many people today seem to realize," Tulchin writes...

Bush listens to neighbors' leaders By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 27 minutes ago MONTEBELLO, Quebec - President Bush's summit with the leaders of Canada and Mexico is likely to produce little more than promises of cooperation — and some signs of disunity. Bush came to this resort town on the Ottawa River to strengthen his ties with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon. They were poised to announce at least one wrinkle, an effort to clarify border security plans in emergencies. Yet for all the gestures of unity, there were differences that were...

Castro: Cuba not cashing U.S. Guantanamo rent checks By Anthony Boadle 2 hours, 23 minutes ago HAVANA (Reuters) - The United States pays Cuba $4,085 a month in rent for the controversial Guantanamo naval base, but Cuba has only once cashed a check in almost half a century and then only by mistake, Fidel Castro wrote in an essay published on Friday. The ailing Cuban leader, who has not appeared in public for more than a year, said he had refused to cash the checks to protest the "illegal" U.S. occupation of the land which he said was now used...

Old missile launcher found near NYC Fri Jul 20, 3:11 PM ET JERSEY CITY, N.J. - An old anti-tank missile launcher was found Friday on a lawn in Jersey City, just across the river from lower Manhattan. The launcher was inoperable and posed no hazard, police said. They turned it over to Army officials at Fort Monmouth. Army personnel identified the yard-long tube as an AT-4 anti-tank missile launcher, said fort spokesman Timothy Rider. Such launchers can only be used once to fire a missile, and soldiers determined that this launcher had been fired, he said. "It can never be...