LOS ANGELES – A concentration camp survivor who joined the U.S. Army out of gratitude, fought in Korea and spent 2 1/2 years in a Chinese prisoner of war camp was awarded a Medal of Honor (search) on Friday, 55 years after his heroism. President Bush gave the nation’s highest …

WASHINGTON – A House committee on Thursday approved a sweeping rewrite of the Endangered Species Act (search) that hands major new rights to property owners while limiting the federal government’s ability to protect plant and animal habitat. The bill by House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (search), R-Calif., bars the …

NEW YORK – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials are on the prowl for illegal aliens (search) living in the United States who have been convicted of serious crimes during their stay. “In New York, we’ve got approximately 26,000 fugitives. And those are just individuals who’ve been ordered deported from …

LOS ANGELES – A wind-whipped 17,000-acre wildfire (search) raced across hills and canyons along the city’s northwestern edge Thursday, threatening homes and forcing hundreds of people to evacuate. Some 3,000 firefighters aided by aircraft struggled to protect ridgetop houses along the Los Angeles-Ventura county line, a rugged, brushy landscape west …

RAFAH, Gaza Strip – Palestinian riot police fired in the air Saturday to keep back dozens of stone-throwing trespassers, and cranes and bulldozers plugged breaches along the porous Gaza-Egypt border, in the first signs of a clampdown after days of chaos. The fate of the border and a new Israeli …

WASHINGTON – Two Democrats who might seek the White House again in 2008 criticized President Bush for his response to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina (search), assailing the suspension of wage laws while urging a concerted effort to aid the poor. Sen. John Kerry (search) of Massachusetts and former Sen. …

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A former government contractor was charged with fraud Tuesday for handing out top access ID badges in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone (search) to an Iraqi girlfriend and others not entitled to have them. Thomas N. Barnes III, 48, of Fort Worth, Texas, a former employee of …

NEW YORK – A Russian diplomat who chairs a powerful U.N. budget committee pleaded not guilty Friday to charges alleging he conspired to hide hundreds of thousands of dollars from foreign companies seeking contracts with the world body. The FBI arrested Vladimir Kuznetsov (search) on Thursday, less than a month …

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – A Pentagon analyst charged with providing classified information to an Israeli official and members of a pro-Israeli lobbying group will plead guilty, according to the U.S. District Court clerk’s office. Lawrence A. Franklin (search), 58, of Kearneysville, W.Va., was indicted in June on charges of leaking classified …

WASHINGTON – President Bush’s newly appointed envoy on human rights abuses in North Korea (search) suggested Thursday that U.S. food aid might be linked to liberating political prisoners. Despite sharp differences with the insular Pyongyang (search) regime, the Bush administration has provided tons of American food to hungry people in …