BOYNTON BEACH, Fla. – Alan Shalleck, who collaborated with the co-creator of “Curious George” to bring the mischievous monkey to television and a series of book sequels, was found dead outside his home, and police were treating the death as a possible homicide. The bloodied body of Shalleck, 76, was …

McLEAN, Va. – The Hyatt hotel chain has come under fire for agreeing to host a conference this weekend sponsored by a white supremacist group. The conference in the Washington suburb of Herndon is sponsored by the Oakton, Va.-based New Century Foundation, whose leader says the white race is losing …

WASHINGTON – Paying space travelers could be lifting off from the United States by 2008, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta says. He told a group of space entrepreneurs Thursday that he expects to issue permits for test flights next year. If those are successful, licenses for passenger space travel could then …

PHEONIX – Faced with mounting election-year public pressure to curtail illegal immigration, Arizona lawmakers are trying to expand state trespassing law to enable local authorities to arrest illegal border crossers. Supporters say the state has to get involved in combating illegal immigration because the federal government has failed in its …

WASHINGTON – Actress Angelina Jolie, currently at an African resort awaiting the birth of the baby she is having with Brad Pitt, did something unusual on Wednesday. She thanked the media. Jolie, who is getting help from Namibian authorities to keep reporters and photographers away from the resort where she …

HONOLULU – A crowd of mostly baby boomers rocked an otherwise silent volcano, dancing and singing to the first concert inside Diamond Head crater in nearly 30 years. “The crater is our Woodstock in Hawaii,” screamed 49-year-old Eddie Knoebel, who once joined wild teenagers for popular crater concerts in the …

NEW YORK – Surfing the Web at work is equivalent to reading a newspaper or talking on the phone, an administrative law judge said in recommending the lightest possible punishment for a city worker accused of disregarding warnings to stay off the Internet. The case involved Toquir Choudhri, a 14-year …

WASHINGTON – The partnership between government and business is tighter than ever, blurring legal and ethical lines between the two, say concerned observers, and the collaborations have yet to prove themselves as a net positive for the American public. Two examples cited by experts of the growing overlap between government …

NEW YORK – Another 300 or so human bone fragments have been found in recent days on the roof of a skyscraper badly damaged by the collapse of the World Trade Center, officials said Thursday. Workers have been removing toxic chemicals and trade center dust from the former Deutsche Bank …

VIENNA, Austria – The Austrian presidency of the European Union on Friday condemned the use of violence by Nepalese government forces to quell pro-democracy protesters, and urged authorities to grant access to health workers, United Nations observers and diplomats. “The use of live ammunition against demonstrators marks a watershed in …