WASHINGTON (AP) — House Minority Leader John A. Boehner, Ohio Republican, could walk down most American streets without turning a head.

But the perpetually tanned, chain-smoking Mr. Boehner might be the next House speaker and a huge force in national politics, trying to manage an increasingly libertarian-leaning Republican caucus while leading the ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Seeking ways to spur economic growth ahead of the November elections, President Obama will ask Congress to increase and permanently extend research and development tax credits for businesses, a White House official said Sunday.

Mr. Obama will outline the $100 billion proposal during a speech on the ...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghanistan's largest bank remained solvent Sunday after a nearly weeklong run on the troubled institution, according to the governor of the nation's central bank, which is being criticized for looking the other way at the bank's mismanagement problems for too long.

Nervous depositors continued to make withdrawals, but Central Bank Governor Abdul Qadir ...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — Investigators expressed confidence Sunday that they will learn why an airplane carrying skydivers crashed in flames near a popular tourist spot in New Zealand's Southern Alps, killing four Europeans and five New Zealanders.

Six investigators from New Zealand's Transport Accident Investigation Commission were traveling to the crash scene to begin inquiries along with a coroner, officials ...

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand (AP) — The powerful earthquake that smashed buildings, cracked roads and twisted rail lines around the New Zealand city of Christchurch also ripped a new fault line in the Earth's surface, a geologist said Sunday.

At least 500 buildings, including 90 in the downtown area, have been designated as destroyed by the 7.1-magnitude quake that ...

NEW YORK (AP) — Sometimes there's no going back.

JetBlue Airways says there will be no second exits for famed flight attendant Steven Slater, who captured the nation's imagination with his profanity-laced loudspeaker tirade and jump down a plane's emergency chute, beer in hand.

Spokeswoman Jenny Dervin said Saturday that Mr. ...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Pilots on board a UPS cargo plane faced radio problems and smoke in the cockpit as they struggled to maintain altitude before crashing into the desert outside Dubai last week, investigators said Sunday.

What exactly caused Friday's crash remains under investigation. The UAE's General Civil Aviation ...

MADRID (AP) — The Basque separatist militant group ETA declared a cease-fire in a video statement issued on Sunday.

The video showed three masked militants making a statement in Basque. The statement appeared on the website of the Basque newspaper Gara and also was made available to the British Broadcasting Corp. Gara accompanied the video ...

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — A coalition service member was killed in fighting in Afghanistan's turbulent south Sunday, while a political rival of President Hamid Karzai questioned his approach to pending talks with Taliban who might be having doubts about the insurgency.

The death is the sixth among foreign fighters in ...

MAKHACHKALA, Russia (AP) — A suicide car bomber killed three soldiers and wounded 32 others in an attack on a military base in Russia's violence-plagued republic of Dagestan on Sunday, officials said.

The attack took place about 1 a.m. (5 p.m. EDT Saturday) at the base in the city of ...

BAGHDAD (AP) — Suicide bombers hit a Baghdad military headquarters on Sunday and killed 12 people, two weeks after an attack on the same site pointed to the failure of Iraqi forces to plug even the most obvious holes in their security.

Baghdad has been on high alert as the ...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Frustrated, discouraged and just plain mad, a lot of people who have lost jobs — or know someone who has — now want to see the names of Democrats on pink slips. And that's jeopardizing the party's chances in Ohio and all across the country in ...

Craigslist appears to have surrendered in a legal fight over erotic ads posted on its website, shutting down its adult services section Saturday and replacing it with a black bar that simply says "censored."

The move comes just over a week after a group of state attorneys general said ...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A judge has ordered a U.S.-born suspected drug lord known as "La Barbie" held for 40 days pending an investigation into organized crime and other possible charges, authorities announced Saturday.

Edgar Valdez Villarreal, who got his nickname for his fair skin and green eyes, will be jailed ...

WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) — A light aircraft carrying skydivers crashed in flames Saturday near a popular tourist spot in New Zealand's Southern Alps, killing nine people including four foreign tourists, police said.

The plane caught fire after takeoff from an airstrip at Fox Glacier on the country's South ...

FALCON HEIGHTS, Minn. (AP) — Despite the smells of fried dough and roasted meat wafting from the Minnesota State Fair, Salim and Zuleyha Ozonder were focused on the people who were leaving, not the food or festivities beckoning from across the street.

Each time a new wave of people ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The security company Blackwater Worldwide formed a network of 30 shell companies and subsidiaries to try to get millions of dollars in government business after the company faced strong criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq, The New York Times reported Friday.

The newspaper said that it ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A healthy economy needs bustling Main Streets and a thriving middle class even more than a healthy stock market, President Barack Obama said as he reaffirmed his commitment to work hard for America's hardworking men and women.

In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama on ...

ON THE GULF OF MEXICO (AP) — A crane hoisted a key piece of oil spill evidence to the surface of the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, giving investigators their first chance to personally scrutinize the blowout preventer, the massive piece of equipment that failed to stop the gusher four ...

PHOENIX (AP) — Gov. Jan Brewer rose to national fame defending the state's immigration law and warning of rising violence along the U.S.-Mexico border, including a claim that headless bodies were turning up in the Arizona desert.

But the claim has come back to haunt her after her stammering debate ...