SAN FRANCISCO – Secret documents that allegedly detail the surveillance of AT&T phone lines under the Bush administration’s terrorist surveillance program can be used in a lawsuit against the telephone giant, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, but the records will remain sealed. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker rejected a bid …

MILWAUKEE – Alarmed by the way authorities confiscated guns in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, the National Rifle Association called on all police chiefs and mayors Thursday to sign a pledge that they will never forcibly disarm law-abiding citizens. “Mayors and police chiefs have already sworn to uphold the Constitution …

BANTUL, Indonesia – Grieving quake survivors on Monday scavenged for food in the debris of their houses, as the world promised millions of dollars in aid, food and medicine to help Indonesia recover from its latest deadly natural disaster. The death toll from the weekend’s 6.3-magnitude earthquake, which has been …

ST. LOUIS – Police believe a high school teacher who moonlights as a pro wrestler attacked a 17-year-old girl and then left her in the woods with a broken neck for than 30 hours before accompanying investigators back to where she lay. Searchers who spotted Ashley Reeves through driving rain …

NUKU’ALOFA, Tonga – A system that should have passed on a warning to a Pacific Island about the imminant risk of a potentially devastating tsunami failed, a disaster official said Thursday. “Nobody got a warning through the emergency satellite system in our meteorogical office,” Mali’u Takai, deputy director of Tonga’s …

PARIS – Police in a troubled Parisian suburb clashed Tuesday with dozens of young people armed with baseball bats, an incident that revived fears of more riots like those that shook the nation last year. French media reports said seven police were injured in the melee in the town of …

SEATTLE – Under pressure from Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) investors to return a portion of the company’s $35 billion cash reserve and revive a flagging share price, Chief Executive Steve Ballmer on Wednesday defended the company’s “first-class problem” of having too much cash. Ballmer, speaking to investors at the Sanford C. …

PHILADELPHIA – A couple and their quadriplegic son were fatally shot in their home early Sunday, police said. Authorities had no immediate motive for the slayings. The 20-year-old son was found dead in a hospital bed and the mother elsewhere in the row house, authorities said. The father was pronounced …

WHITE HOUSE – President Bush on Monday said the inauguration of Iraq’s new cabinet over the weekend is a “watershed event” that marks the newest “constitutional democracy in the heart of the Middle East” and a major milestone in that country’s movement toward stability. “This is a free government under …

HOUSTON – A teenager stricken with rabies he likely contracted when a bat flew into his bedroom and bit him died Friday. The Humble High School sophomore had been in an induced coma for several days at Texas Children’s Hospital in Houston, the Houston Chronicle reported in Saturday editions. He …