U.S. News

Former NBA player Lamar Odom has pleaded no contest to a drunken driving charge and accepted a sentence of three years' probation and three months of alcohol abuse treatment.

Italy's new leader of the Democratic Party, the government's biggest coalition partner, is pledging to back Premier Enrico Letta.

A search is on in the mountains of rural northwestern Nevada for a couple and four children who went to play in the snow Sunday and haven't returned.

A Yemeni security official says a U. S. drone strike in southern Yemen has killed three al-Qaida suspects.

A passenger who fell asleep while flying to Los Angeles says he awoke to discover himself alone and locked inside a dark, empty United Express plane in Houston.

Along a street lined with walled mansions shaded by graceful jacaranda trees, mourners, black and white, by the thousands rubbed shoulders Monday outside the villa where Nelson Mandela died, placing flower bouquets and condolence notes on top of piles already knee-high. Others danced while singing praise for the anti-apartheid leader — a vivid example of the "Rainbow Nation" unity of race-blind multiculturalism championed by Mandela for South Africa.

Sarah Palin will be host of a weekly outdoors-oriented program starting next year on The Sportsman Channel.

Dozens of young men stood waiting for storm clouds to pass, as wind stirred up swirls of red dust on the deserted street in Central African Republic's capital. Through the drizzle they spotted a man in a flowing white robe traditionally worn by Muslims, hand-in-hand with his adolescent son.

The stock market is opening little changed following last week's strong U. S. jobs report.

A Italian Coast Guard official has testified that hundreds of people were still aboard the shipwrecked Costa Concordia when the commander abandoned the cruise liner in a lifeboat.

When her agent pitches a new project, Danica Patrick usually makes her decisions on the spot — yes or no — with little hesitation. When the producers of the American Country Awards called and asked if she'd co-host the show, the NASCAR driver took her foot off the gas pedal.

For days, temperatures have plunged across a large portion of the United States, accompanied by a storm system that's brought sleet, snow, ice or a combination of all three. The weather has been a factor in several deaths and has caused treacherous travel conditions and the cancellation of thousands of flights.

Tucked away in a stately mansion in The Hague, members of the Syrian opposition in exile have been given lessons in how to get what they want at crucial peace talks scheduled for early next year in Geneva.

A hospital official in the Libyan city of Benghazi says unknown gunmen have shot dead a policeman.

Germany's express delivery and mail company Deutsche Post DHL is testing a drone that could be used to deliver urgently needed goods to hard-to-reach places.

The United Nations says Israel has agreed to again allow imports of construction materials into the Gaza Strip after a two-month clampdown.