INDIANAPOLIS – Sweeping past Indiana‘s steel mills and corn and soybean fields, the 157-mile Indiana Toll Road is often called the “Main Street of the Midwest” for its strategic role in linking the East Coast to Chicago and points west. Now the highway across the heartland could fall into private …

ST. LOUIS – Humans risk being overrun by diseases from the animal world, according to researchers who have documented 38 illnesses that have made that jump over the past 25 years. That’s not good news for the spread of bird flu, which experts fear could mutate and be transmitted easily …

KAMPALA, Uganda – President Yoweri Museveni overwhelmingly won re-election in Uganda’s first multiparty elections in 25 years, according to official results announced Saturday. Museveni got 60 percent of the vote, while his closest rival, Kizza Besigye, had 36 percent, the Electoral Commission said. Three other candidates shared a little more …

WASHINGTON – President Bush sent Congress a $2.77 trillion budget plan on Monday that would boost spending in the war against terror but squeeze a wide swath of other government programs to deal with exploding budget deficits. Bush, hoping to get his domestic agenda back on track after a year …

Vice President Dick Cheney arrived at the White House early Wednesday in usual fashion even as objections continue over his delay in informing the Washington press corps that he accidentally shot a fellow hunter over the weekend. The vice president attended a meeting with President Bush and congressional leaders, after …

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. – Two months ago, a federal prosecutor accused Michael Reynolds, a 47-year-old transient who lived with his elderly mother in Wilkes-Barre, of trying to work with Al Qaeda to blow up fuel facilities in at least three states. Now officials say that Reynolds, who was snared in an …

DETROIT – Detroit’s traditional Big Three automakers Wednesday reported surprising increases in January U.S. vehicle sales, breaking losing streaks that began in the fall of last year as their aggressive discounting lost steam. Both General Motors Corp. (GM) and Ford Motor Co. (F) cautioned that their outsized monthly gains came …

SAN FRANCISCO – Among the companies whose shares are expected to see active trade in Friday’s session are Amazon.com Inc., Electronic Arts Inc. and Weyerhaeuser Co. Ryder System Inc. (R) is expected to report fourth-quarter earnings of 94 cents a share, according to analysts polled by Thomson First Call. THQ …

HOUSTON – A photograph of Andrea Yates‘ 7-year-old son floating face down in a bathtub is among the images her attorney does not want jurors to see during Yates’ second capital murder trial. Yates’ attorney filed 30 pretrial motions, which were made public Monday, including one requesting “any and all …

SAN`A, Yemen – A firing squad on Monday executed an Islamic militant who killed three American missionaries in a south Yemen hospital in 2002, Yemen’s official Saba news agency reported. Abed Abdul Razak Kamel was shot in the central prison of the southern Ibb province as prison, police and judicial …