story

WASHINGTON – The House voted Thursday to cut taxes on inherited estates and relieve thousands of heirs from paying tax collectors during the next decade. The vote, just a few months before an election with control of Congress at stake, saw majority Republicans temporarily setting aside their ambition to abolish …

WASHINGTON – The Federal Reserve looked set to lift U.S. interest rates on Thursday for a 17th straight time and will likely hold the door open to pushing them even higher in coming months to ward off inflation. Fed officials began meeting for a second day at 9 a.m. EDT …

HONOLULU – Families of six of the seven people killed when a century-old earthen dam burst on the island of Kauai in March have filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the property’s owners. The lawsuit filed Thursday alleges the area surrounding the reservoir was illegally graded by landowner James H. …

SINGAPORE – U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Friday defended the training and conduct of U.S. troops and said incidents like an alleged massacre of Iraqi civilians should not happen. “We know that 99.9 percent of our forces conduct themselves in an exemplary manner. We also know that in …

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledged Tuesday to push ahead with efforts to curb rampant sectarian and militia violence after a series of brazen attacks, including the kidnappings of 50 people in broad daylight in Baghdad. Police found nine severed heads in fruit boxes in a village northeast …

Planning to ask your boss for a raise? You might want to do it over a cup of coffee. A new study reports people may be more easily persuaded to change their opinion after consuming caffeine. Researchers in Brisbane, Australia found undistracted university students were more persuaded by arguments made …

Secondhand smoke exposure may be dwindling in the U.S., a new study shows. The number of U.S. nonsmokers with detectable blood levels of cotinine — a marker for tobacco exposure — fell 70 percent from 1988 to 2002. James Pirkle, MD, PhD, and colleagues report that finding in the June …

MUNICH, Germany – World Cup 2006 officially got underway Friday with a game between host country Germany and Costa Rica at a stadium in Munich amid tight security, dazzling fanfare and many mugs of beer. The game kicked off at 6 p.m. local time after German President Horst Koehler declared …

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran accused the United States on Sunday of pushing Europe away from a possible compromise on Tehran‘s disputed nuclear program. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said the U.S. insistence on placing conditions on negotiations over a Western package of incentives has narrowed the scope of possible …

SANTA FE – A Santa Fe County man is the second person to contract the plague in New Mexico this year, the state Department of Health says. The unidentified man was hospitalized Wednesday in critical but stable condition, said Deborah Busemeyer, department spokeswoman. The man was suffering from the septicemic …