U.S. National News

In this magazine cover image released by US Weekly Magazine, the Dec. 14, 2009 issue of 'US Weekly' featuring Tiger Woods, is shown. The issue is available nationwide on newsstands on Friday, Dec. 4. (AP Photo/US Weekly)
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Tiger Woods: 'Personal failings' let family down

AP - 45 minutes ago

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. - Tiger Woods disclosed his "personal failings" in a 317-word statement on his Web site that did not delve into details, except to say that he "let my family down" and regrets it "with all of my heart."

  • Washington State Patrol Sgt. Keith Trowbridge, right, visits the still-growing memorial at the Forza Coffee Company, Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009, in Parkland, Wash., where four Lakewood, Wash. police officers were killed as they sat in the shop Sunday morning. Trowbridge said he used to work with Lakewood Police officer Ronald Owens, who was one of the four officers killed, when Owens was with the Washington State Patrol. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
    Man accused of aiding in Wash. police killing AP - 2 hours, 8 minutes ago

    TACOMA, Wash. - A suspect accused of helping Maurice Clemmons flee after the gunman massacred four suburban police officers could face trial as an accomplice to murder — a crime that might bring the same penalties as if he had pulled the trigger himself.

  • Soldiers guard next to a transportation warehouse where a tunnel was found, near the US-Mexico border in Tijuana, Mexico, Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said Mexican authorities discovered an unfinished tunnel that extends into San Diego and is equipped with a lift system, ventilation and lighting. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)
    Only sliver of aid for US-Mexico drug plan spent AP - Thu Dec 3, 1:17 AM ET

    McALLEN, Texas - Only $26 million of the $1.4 billion authorized to help Mexico and Central America fight organized crime has been spent due to bureaucracy, conditions placed on the funds by Congress and preparations in recipient countries, according to a government report scheduled for release Thursday.

  • FILE - This Nov. 13, 2009 file photo shows Anthony Sowell in Cleveland. The registered sex offender attacked 14 women and killed 11 of them, leaving their remains in and around his home, a prosecutor said Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2009 in announcing a grand jury indictment against the suspected serial killer. (AP Photo/Mark Duncan, File)
    Ohio suspect faces arraignment on 11 murder counts AP - 2 hours, 35 minutes ago

    CLEVELAND - A search at the former home of a serial murder suspect whose more recent home held the remains of 11 women turned up no new bodies, the FBI said.

  • Palin book tour host to foreign press: stay away AP - Wed Dec 2, 7:13 PM ET

    SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - She's no longer the chief executive of Alaska, but Sarah Palin should still be called "governor." And in English only, please.

  • FILE - This is an undated file photo of Edgar Allan Poe. A rare edition of Edgar Allan Poe's first book is expected to set a record sale price for American literature when it hits the auction block this week. (AP Photo/File)
    Rare 1st Poe book could fetch record at NY auction AP - 2 hours, 38 minutes ago

    BOSTON - When a teenage Edgar Allan Poe moved to Boston to find work in 1827, he was eager to launch his literary career, re-establish his roots in the city of his birth and distance himself from his foster father in Richmond, Va.

  • The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree stands lit in front of the General Electric building in New York's Rockefeller Plaza during the 77th annual tree lighting ceremony Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009 in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
    NYC tree lighting ushers in tourist season AP - Thu Dec 3, 2:44 AM ET

    NEW YORK - Mayor Michael Bloomberg has lit the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree, ushering in tourist season in one of New York's busiest holiday shopping districts.

  • FILE - In this Friday, July 31, 2009 picture, workers move one of two burial vaults that were exhumed in the same grave at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Ill. Officials say burial problems continue to plague the suburban Chicago cemetery where former workers were charged with digging up hundreds of graves in a scheme to resell burial plots. Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip reopened in November after being closed for nearly four months after police arrested the four workers. They were accused of digging up graves, tossing remains or double-burying bodies in a scheme that went back several years. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty)
    More unidentified bodies surface at Ill. cemetery AP - Wed Dec 2, 10:11 PM ET

    CHICAGO - Officials at a historic black cemetery in suburban Chicago where former workers allegedly dug up graves in a scheme to resell burial plots are again finding human remains in the ground when they try to bury someone else.

  • FILE - This May 30, 2007 file photo shows U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Jeffrey R. Chessani arriving at a preliminary hearing where he is charged with violation of a lawful order and dereliction of duty at Camp Pendleton, Calif. A military panel is convening at Camp Pendleton on Wednesday Dec. 2, 2009 to decide whether Chessani should be demoted for failing to investigate the deaths of 24 Iraqis in Haditha in November 2005. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi, File)
    Conflicting portraits emerge of accused Marine AP - 23 minutes ago

    CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - A prosecutor has argued that a Marine Corps officer facing demotion failed to fully disclose and investigate the killing of two dozen Iraqi men, women and children by Marines under his command.

  • New York state Sens. Ruben Diaz, D-Bronx, left, and Thomas Duane, D-Manhattan, shake hands after a debate over same-sex marriage in the New York state Senate at the Capitol in Albany, N.Y., on Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009. The bill, supported by Duane and opposed by Diaz, was defeated 38-24. (AP Photo/Tim Roske)
    New York state lawmakers reject gay marriage bill AP - Thu Dec 3, 3:06 AM ET

    ALBANY, N.Y. - New York lawmakers on Wednesday rejected a bill that would have made their state the sixth to allow gay marriage, stunning advocates who suffered a similar decision by Maine voters just last month.

  • FILE - In this Thursday, Jan. 5, 2006 file photo, a bighead carp, front, a species of the Asian carp, swims in a new exhibit that highlights plants and animals that eat or compete with Great Lakes native species, at Chicago's Shedd Aquarium. Illinois environmental officials will dump a toxic chemical into a nearly 6-mile stretch of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009 to keep the voracious Asian carp from entering the Great Lakes while an electrical barrier is turned off for maintenance. (AP Photo/M. Spencer Green, File)
    Fears mount over giant carp reaching Great Lakes AP - Wed Dec 2, 9:39 PM ET

    CHICAGO - Fears that giant, voracious species of carp will get into the Great Lakes and wipe out other fish have led to rising demands that the government close the waterway connecting the lakes to the Mississippi River — an unprecedented step that could disrupt the movement of millions of tons of iron ore, coal, grain and other goods.

  • This undated photo released by the Scioto County Sheriff's Office shows Joshua Hunter, 20, of Watertown, N.Y., a Fort Drum, N.Y., soldier. Hunter was arrested at a hotel in southern Ohio, Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009, on a warrant charging him in Tuesday's stabbing deaths of two fellow servicemen, Waide James, 20, and Diego Valbuena, 23, in northern New York. (AP Photo/Scioto County Sheriff's Office)
    2 NY soldiers stabbed to death, a 3rd in custody AP - Wed Dec 2, 6:46 PM ET

    ROCHESTER, N.Y. - A Fort Drum soldier was arrested at a hotel in southern Ohio early Wednesday on a warrant charging him in the stabbing deaths of two fellow servicemen at an apartment near the military post in northern New York.

  • FILE-This Nov. 27, 2009 file photo released by the White House shows President Barack Obama greeting Michaele and Tareq Salahi, right, at a State Dinner hosted by Obama at the White House in Washington Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009. The Salahis deny they were crashing the White House dinner. In any case, party crashing is a flourishing phenomenon, harried event planners say. (AP Photo/The White House, Samantha Appleton,File)
    Party crashing: A flourishing phenomenon AP - Wed Dec 2, 4:52 PM ET

    NEW YORK - There was a list at the door, but the beautifully dressed guest in the chic, red-soled Christian Louboutin shoes wasn't on it. Still, she insisted she was a friend of the host. Not wanting to offend, the staffer at the door waved her in.

  • NY lawmakers approve deficit-cutting plan AP - Wed Dec 2, 7:52 PM ET

    ALBANY, N.Y. - New York's Senate has joined the Assembly in approving a measure to reduce the state's budget deficit by about $2.8 billion.

  • Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon leaves a news conference concerning the police department's mounted unit, Wednesday, Dec. 2, 2009, in Baltimore. Dixon resumed her regular duties a day after her misdemeanor conviction for taking gift cards meant for a program to help the city's poor children. (AP Photo/Rob Carr)
    Baltimore mayor back on job despite guilty verdict AP - Wed Dec 2, 5:27 PM ET

    BALTIMORE - Mayor Sheila Dixon's misdemeanor fraud conviction fails to meet a key standard necessary for her removal from office, her attorney said Wednesday as the mayor resumed her regular duties a day after the verdict.

  • FILE - In this Nov. 19, 2009 file photo former Captain of the container ship Maersk Alabama, Richard Phillips, listens to a question during a news conference in Norfolk, Va. The lifeboat , that he was rescued from is on display behind him. Phillips, who was toasted as a hero after his ordeal as a captive of Somali pirates in April of 2009 unnecessarily exposed his crew to danger by not heeding repeated maritime safety warnings about pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden before his ship was attacked, some members of his crew now allege. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
    AP Enterprise: Crew blames capt. for pirate attack AP - Wed Dec 2, 8:57 PM ET

    MONTPELIER, Vt. - Richard Phillips, the ship captain toasted as a hero after he was taken captive by Somali pirates, ignored repeated warnings last spring to keep his freighter at least 600 miles off the African coast because of the heightened risk of attack, some members of his crew now allege.

Crimes and Trials News

  • Jess Clarke, right, embraces his girlfriend Bobbijo Lundt, second from right, during community prayer vigil for four fallen Lakewood police officers in Lakewood, Wash., Wednesday evening, December 2, 2009. Hundreds attended the service that honored Greg Richards, Tina Griswold, Ronald Owens and Mark Renninger and was held outside the Lakewood YMCA.(Janet Jensen/The News Tribune)
    Man accused of aiding in Wash. police killing AP - 2 hours, 8 minutes ago

    TACOMA, Wash. - A suspect accused of helping Maurice Clemmons flee after the gunman massacred four suburban police officers could face trial as an accomplice to murder — a crime that might bring the same penalties as if he had pulled the trigger himself.

  • A federal jury found a Minnesota man guilty of running a $65 billion Ponzi scheme that fleeced customers for more than 10 years, the Justice Department has said.(AFP/File/Saul Loeb)
    Minnesota man convicted over $3.65 bln Ponzi scheme AFP - Thu Dec 3, 4:22 AM ET

    CHICAGO (AFP) - A federal jury found a Minnesota man guilty of running a 3.65 billion dollar Ponzi scheme that fleeced customers for more than 10 years, the Justice Department said in a statement.

  • A New York court on Wednesday sentenced a cocaine kingpin from one of Mexico's bloodiest gangs to 27 years in prison for trafficking at least 200 tons of cocaine to the United States. "Gilberto Salinas Doria is a true drug kingpin who, in the course of just five years, shipped more than 200 tons of cocaine from Mexico to the United States," said federal prosecutor Preet Bharara in New York.(AFP/Getty Images/File/Mario Tama)
    U.S. court jails Mexico drug kingpin for 27 years Reuters - Thu Dec 3, 4:19 AM ET

    PHOENIX (Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge sentenced a kingpin of Mexico's powerful Juarez drug cartel to 27 years in prison for smuggling at least 200 tons of cocaine into the United States, authorities said on Wednesday.