A woman heading to her stepfather's house was "beyond lost" when she and her 8-year-old son took one wrong turn after another through the backroads of Thurston County and onto a private Puget Sound beach, authorities said Monday. more >>

A 38-year-old father of two was jogging and listening to his iPod when he was hit from behind and killed by a small plane making an emergency landing on the beach, officials said Tuesday. more >>

A lengthy pursuit ended Tuesday morning in the Tolleson area west of Phoenix as a pickup truck driver carrying a load of human cargo tried to evade police. more >>

An earthquake east of downtown Los Angeles rippled across Southern California before dawn Tuesday, jolting millions of people awake and putting first-responders on alert but causing no damage, injuries or power outages. more >>

Police escorted convoys of flatbed trucks carrying piles of sandbags into neighborhoods Monday as the cities of Fargo in eastern North Dakota and neighboring Moorhead, Minn., went into flood-fighting mode. more >>

The national Alliance Defense Fund says a town code that bars religious assemblies in private homes in the Arizona community of Gilbert is unconstitutional. more >>

On-board surveillance video shows a school bus driver was sleep-deprived and didn't stop before turning into a suburban Philadelphia middle school, causing an accident that killed the passenger of an oncoming car, authorities said Monday. more >>

Police in Ohio have brought more charges against a Walmart shopper accused of punching children in the head for kicks. more >>

Investigators of a 20-year-old art heist at a Boston museum that was the largest such theft in history are stepping up their efforts. more >>

The California Highway Patrol says the Toyota Corolla veered off Highway 1 on Sunday and went over the cliff, landing on a rocky beach below. more >>

The mother of a sixth grade North Carolina student said she's enraged after her daughter's teacher gave her a failing grade and wrote "loser" on a recent class assignment, Fox8.com reported Monday. more >>

Thousands of people ripped off by New York City taxi drivers who illegally overcharged them could get some money back. more >>

Laura Caballero was known as Sister Mary at the St. Filumena Catholic Church in Eustis more >>

An Ohio woman claims in a lawsuit that a Pennsylvania plastic surgeon used the wrong kind of breast implants on her. more >>

Authorities in western Kentucky say a teenager's effort to jump from his father's moving vehicle led to the boy's death. more >>

A Great Falls man who says he was wrongly fired from his job for using medical marijuana has filed a $500,000 lawsuit against his former employer. more >>

The Lockerbie bomber is at the center of a fresh row after it emerged he is taking a cancer drug that could keep him alive for five more years, The Sun reported on Monday. more >>

Somalia's government signed an agreement with a powerful militia on Monday that offers high-level militants senior government positions in return for their military support during a long-planned offensive against an Islamist insurgency. more >>

Kidnappers released a 5-year-old British boy unharmed Tuesday almost two weeks after abducting him from his grandparents' house in central Pakistan, British and Pakistani officials said. more >>

A top Vatican official says Pope Benedict XVI will speak with a 'clear and decisive voice' when he addresses clerical sex abuses in Ireland in a forthcoming letter. more >>

Pope Benedict XVI's former diocese says it has suspended a priest convicted in 1986 of sexually abusing minors and accepted the resignation of his superior. more >>

Iran's hard-line government says the country's largest pro-reform political party has been banned as part of the crackdown on the opposition. more >>

An early morning rocket attack on the largest U.S. military hub in Afghanistan killed one person Monday, NATO said. In the east, meanwhile, Afghan authorities thwarted three would-be homicide bombers from attacking a security post. more >>

Yemen's embassy in Washington says its nation's air force launched an airstrike on an al Qaeda hideout ahead of a likely terror attack. more >>

Pakistani police discovered a cache of bomb-making equipment and thousands of pounds of explosives Monday in an empty Lahore shop where authorities said a string of attacks on the eastern city may have been plotted. more >>

A suspected Mexican drug gang gunned down two cars carrying families with ties to the U.S. consulate on Saturday, killing an American couple and a Mexican man in the country's deadliest city. more >>

Egyptian security officials arrested an Israeli journalist as he tried to sneak across the porous Israeli-Egyptian border with African migrants, his newspaper reported Monday. more >>

A British couple is appealing a jail sentence after being accused of sharing a passionate kiss in a Dubai restaurant. more >>

Thailand's prime minister, backed by a formidable military force, rejected an ultimatum to dissolve Parliament on Monday as tens of thousands of red-shirted protesters vowed to wet the seat of government with their own blood if their demands weren't met. more >>

Twin car bombs exploded outside a government building where amnesty talks were underway Monday in Nigeria's restive and oil-rich region, wounding two people and causing panic, a government spokesman said. more >>

U.K. Labour Party lawmaker Ashok Kumar was found dead at his home in Middlesbrough, northern England, Monday, his office said. more >>

North Korea should let farms produce freely and allow food to be sold in local markets because the communist government cannot provide enough food for its people, a U.N. human rights investigator urged Monday. more >>

Georgia's opposition politicians are denouncing the government over a hoax television broadcast that said Russia had invaded and the president had been killed. more >>

Authorities say rescue teams have evacuated 6,000 people, some of them forcibly, from flood-stricken districts in central Mozambique. more >>

A court convicted the governing party's youth leader of hate speech Monday after he said the woman who once accused South Africa's president of rape had had a 'nice time' because she stayed the night and asked for taxi money. more >>

Pakistani fighter jets pounded Taliban hide-outs near the Afghan border Sunday, killing 17 insurgents, local officials said. more >>