SHREVEPORT (AP) — The state conservation office this month will begin enforcing a new requirement that oil and gas companies report the water sources they use for the practice of hydraulic fracturing...

BEIJING (AP) — Nearly 1,000 children in a central Chinese province have tested positive for excessive lead in their blood, state media reported Tuesday, the latest of several lead poisoning cases...

(AP) — A panel charged with finding ways to slash government spending by more than $800 million began to consider cut ideas.The Commission on Streamlining Government held hearings around the state....

WASHINGTON (AP) — With support from a lone Republican, a key Senate committee Tuesday approved a middle-of-the-road health care plan that moves President Obama's goal of wider and affordable coverage...

BAGHDAD (AP) — A suicide bomber killed the leader of a U.S.-backed Sunni paramilitary group and seven others north of Baghdad Tuesday, the third attack in as many days in a heavily populated Sunni...

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The activist group ACORN fires its longtime Louisiana chapter director.ACORN's chief executive officer, Bertha Lewis, announced former state director Beth Butler's dismissal Monday.Lewis'...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — Yale University has said its formal goodbyes to Annie Le , the 24-year-old graduate student found strangled last month behind a wall in a medical school building's laboratory.Classmates,...

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Militants from the heart of Pakistan teamed up with Taliban insurgents from the remote Afghan border region to carry out the bold weekend assault on army headquarters, the army said...

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea fired five short-range missiles off its east coast on Monday, news reports said, even as South Korea proposed working-level talks with its communist neighbor.South...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a bill recognizing gay marriages sanctioned in other states during the nearly five months such unions were legal in California.Schwarzenegger...

(AP) — Attorney General Buddy Caldwell's office and the state inspector general are investigating a Louisiana police pension fund.Caldwell's office on Monday confirmed the joint investigation of...

MONROE (AP) — Louisiana's juvenile justice oversight panel has completed a tour of a youth prison criticized recently for having too many prisoners and too little staff.Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, chairman...