News: U.S.

Fueled by cultural inertia and light penalties, cockfighting in New Mexico continues unabated in hidden venues.

Businesses are proposing alternatives to laws with harsh punishments for hiring illegal immigrants, reopening a rift in the Republican Party.

A politician who has thrived in informal settings is now trying to meet the more scripted speaking demands of a general election campaign.

Fort Monroe, a Union oasis where fugitive slaves flocked during the Civil War, will return to Virginia’s control in 2011 when the Army pulls out.

Avastin, which can cost as much as $100,000 a year, has become one of the most popular cancer drugs, but studies show it prolongs life by only a few months.

Senator Barack Obama’s social networking website has become a source of organized criticism of some of the candidates positions.

CROWN KING, Ariz. (AP) -- Playing with matches, being careless with a campfire, even burning a letter from an estranged husband: Some of the most devastating wildfires in the country's recent history have been started by people....

Even folks in the Optimist Club are having a tough time toeing an upbeat line these days....

BEND, Ore. (AP) -- Riding a green lawn chair supported by a rainbow array of more than 150 helium-filled party balloons, Kent Couch took off Saturday in a third bid to fly from central Oregon all the way to Idaho....

Planners of the convention in Denver may be forced to scale back on their original design or increase their fund-raising goals.

TYNGSBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) -- The knock on Brian Hart's door came at 6 a.m. An Army colonel, a priest and a police officer had come to tell Hart and his wife that their 20-year-old son had been killed when his military vehicle was ambushed in Iraq....

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- A Fourth of July fireworks shell misfired in a northern Iowa town, sending a fireball skidding down a street into a crowd of spectators and injuring 37 people, officials said Saturday....

CINCINNATI (AP) -- The NAACP's Cincinnati chapter sagged to a low point a few years ago, its membership the smallest it had been in decades. Some outside the chapter even questioned its relevancy - this in a city recently torn by racially tinged rioting....

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Firefighters in California have fended off a blaze threatening more than 3,000 homes in and around the coastal town of Goleta and are turning their attention to preventing its spread toward the nearby picturesque city of Santa Barbara, officials said on Saturday.

Barack Obama campaign’s approach to reject public financing may offer the only realistic possibility of limiting the corrupting influence of money in politics.

Nearly half of the $900 million presidential candidates have spent on their campaigns has been paid to just a few dozen companies.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Google Inc is under fire from a handful of parents who work at the company's Silicon Valley offices for price hikes in the cost of on-site day care services, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

GRANITE CITY, Ill. (AP) -- The television image of fugitive murder suspect Nicholas Sheley's mug shot was fresh in Samantha Butler's mind as she ventured out to get dinner for the family, warning her relatives to lock the door behind her....

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- A Fourth of July fireworks shell misfired in a northern Iowa town, sending a fireball skidding down a street into a crowd of spectators and injuring 37 people, officials said Saturday....

EUGENE, Oregon (Reuters) - World champion Tyson Gay crashed out of the 200m at the U.S. Olympic trials when he fell about 40 meters into the quarter-finals on Saturday.