TORONTO – A bagpiper played “Amazing Grace” and flags flew at half-staff Friday as Canadians grappled with the deadliest attack on police officers in 120 years, after four Mounties were slain during a raid on a marijuana farm in a rural western hamlet. The slayings stunned a nation that prides …

KABUL, Afghanistan – NATO (search) and Afghan forces suspended their ground and air search as darkness closed in Friday for an Afghan passenger jet carrying 104 people after it disappeared from radar screens during a snowstorm near the mountain-ringed capital. NATO and Afghan Officials denied statements from Turkish officials that …

HAVANA – The country known for its high-quality cigars banned smoking of all kinds in public places Monday, as the Cuban government acknowledged the health risk of tobacco. Smoking will be banned in restaurants, except in designated areas, and cigarette machines also will be removed. The law will also suspend …

LOS ANGELES – Sure, the nudity was startling. But the proof that “NYPD Blue” (search) would be a bold and unsettling new force on TV was police Detective Andy Sipowicz’s snarled insult. “Ipso this, you pissy little —–,” he told an attorney spouting legalisms at him in the 1993 debut …

LIMA, Peru – Faced with a guilty verdict for masterminding a double homicide, a mayor of a remote Andean village swallowed a flask of poison in open court rather than face a 20-year sentence. Canal N television broadcast images Tuesday of Florencio Valverde (search) making the failed suicide attempt a …

WASHINGTON – Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (search), R-Pa., announced Wednesday that he has Hodgkin’s disease but expects to continue to work in the Senate while being treated. “I have beaten a brain tumor, bypass heart surgery and many tough political opponents and I’m going to beat this, too,” Specter …

BALTIMORE – The nation’s Roman Catholic (search) bishops said Friday that over the last year they received 1,092 new allegations of sexual abuse against at least 756 Catholic priests and deacons. Half of the accused priests over the past year had been previously accused of abuse, said Kathleen McChesney, executive …

BRUSSELS, Belgium – Hundreds of demonstrators protested George W. Bush’s (search) visit Sunday, hours before the U.S. president was to arrive in Belgium (search) at the start of a conciliatory swing through Europe. Bush will meet with more than two dozen European leaders during a tour aimed at healing the …

WASHINGTON – Outdated facilities and a shortage of employees led to a backlog of hundreds of thousands of criminal cases at crime labs around the country, according to a government study released Wednesday. The overload threatened to delay justice for suspects and victims, said Joseph L. Peterson of the University …

The epilepsy (search) drug Gabitril (search) is often used to treat conditions other than epilepsy. This use can actually cause seizures, says the FDA. Gabitril has been used since 1997 for patients 12 years of age and older as treatment for partial seizures — a form of epilepsy. But Gabitril …