KOROLYOV, Russia – A new U.S.-Russian crew and an Italian astronaut floated into the international space station Sunday after their Russian Soyuz (search) capsule docked at the orbiting outpost, opening a mission critical for U.S. plans to return the space shuttle to flight two years after the Columbia (search) explosion. …

Bowie, Md. – When Miyoko Fairman was a sixth-grader in Japan during World War II, her class shipped a box of presents to her older brother, who was serving in the Japanese army. Fairman, now 76 and living in Bowie, is again helping send cheer to a soldier at war, …

Many parents don’t enforce rules about exposing their children to secondhand smoke at home or outside the home, a new study suggests. Despite health warnings about the dangers of secondhand smoke exposure for children, researchers found that a large portion of parents don’t restrict smoking at home, in the car, …

LONDON – Aimee Osbourne (search), the eldest daughter of Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, is now having treatment in Los Angeles after a lump was removed from her breast, Sharon Osbourne said Wednesday. “Aimee’s had a breast cancer scare. She found a lump on her breast which she’s had removed,” Sharon …

WASHINGTON – Homeland security spending nationwide is mired in administrative problems that are slowing down the cash flow essential for protecting the nation, say some members of Congress concerned about safety around high-risk areas such as Washington, D.C. The city, considered among the most attractive sites in which to commit …

BEIJING – China is suppressing peaceful Muslim religious and cultural activities in its west under the guise of fighting terrorism, two U.S.-based human rights groups said Tuesday. Comparing the situation to Tibet, a report by the two groups said Muslims in the Xinjiang region are “concerned for their cultural survival” …

RED LAKE, Minn. – The Red Lake tribal chairman said Friday he would not resign unless the public urges him to leave and again proclaimed his son innocent of any involvement in a deadly shooting spree on the Indian reservation. “The only thing my son is guilty of is being …

SACRAMENTO, Calif. – California (search), the land of body worshippers and vegetarians, is getting alarmingly fat, with more than half of all adults overweight, according to a study released Tuesday. The study estimates that overweight and inactive Californians cost $21.7 billion a year in medical bills, injuries and lost productivity. …

MANSFIELD TOWNSHIP, N.J. – Three people died in a fiery crash on the New Jersey Turnpike (search) early Friday morning, and traffic remained snarled during the morning commute. The collisions of three tractor-trailers, a commuter van and a car in Burlington County at about 1:05 a.m. closed northbound lanes of …

Participants in the Minuteman Project (search) have been patrolling a stretch of the southeastern Arizona border since earlier this month, but they would like to organize patrols in other high-traffic smuggling areas. The volunteers, some of whom are armed, began spreading out earlier this month along a 23-mile stretch of …