Getting one of the roughly 11,500 permits granted each year to backpack overnight in the Grand Canyon has become so competitive and "unfair" that managers at the national park have decided to change the system.

Sarah Palin was having dinner Sunday with the Rev. Billy Graham a day before a planned book tour stop in eastern North Carolina.

Lawyer says 9/11 defendants will plead not guilty so they can express their political views

The Kentucky Historical Society has been displaying and publicizing a pair of earrings as having belonged to Mary Todd Lincoln, but others aren't as sure about their authenticity.

Authorities say a 12-year-old boy assaulted by a group of middle school classmates in Southern California may have been targeted after an Internet posting urged students to beat up redheads.

The man considered the father of lethal injection in the United States said it doesn't matter whether three fatal drugs are used or one - as his home state of Ohio has proposed - as long as the drug works efficiently.

India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, has arrived in Washington for a visit to be highlighted by an official welcoming ceremony and a state dinner at the White House with President Barack Obama.

Authorities say a couple and a 14-year-old boy have been killed in a fiery freeway crash in Southern California that two younger children managed to survive.

In the days before Fred Alvarez was shot execution-style with two friends on his verandah, the strapping Cabazon tribal leader feared he was a marked man: His motorcycle had been tampered with, his mailbox shot up and his house ransacked.

A magnitude 3.7 earthquake has rattled Southern California's Big Bear Lake area, followed by a sharp aftershock.

The gunman who killed four people and wounded nine in a shooting rampage on the Pacific island of Saipan was identified Sunday as a Chinese national believed to be employed at the shooting range where the deaths occurred.

The U.S. government resettled Mazen Alsaqa in Massachusetts in February. Within a month, the Iraqi refugee moved to Michigan.

The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said Sunday.

Virginia Military Institute is defending itself against a lengthy investigation into accusations that the school's policies are sexist and hostile toward female cadets, a dozen years after women won the right to enroll.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy will be a tough act to follow, even for the Kennedys. His death, coupled with the decision by family members not to seek the seat he held for nearly five decades, has prompted predictions that the family's long-running political dynasty is over.

Astronaut Randolph Bresnik jubilantly welcomed his new daughter into the world Sunday as he floated 220 miles above it.

A month of harsh words between Rep. Patrick Kennedy and a strident critic, Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin, escalated Sunday when the bishop acknowledged asking Kennedy not to receive Holy Communion because of the Democratic lawmaker's support for abortion rights.

A low-pressure system that has lingered in the Gulf of Mexico the past few days, bringing rain to the Gulf Coast, was expected to finally move inland into the Southeast on Sunday. This was likely to translate to widespread rain and even a few thunderstorms in the area even as the system weakens while moving toward the Southeast coast.

When Henry Spelman found out he'd won a Rhodes Scholarship, his first call was to his girlfriend. To share the good news, of course, but also to see whether she was a winner as well.

A gunman fatally wounded a passenger in another vehicle at an Oregon intersection Saturday, setting off a police chase that ended when the suspect crashed and was killed by officers, authorities said.

Vladimir Gapor is a plumber by trade, but now he's a scavenger, prying bits of scrap steel from the ruins of his old factory and selling them for a pittance.

Officials at the University of California, Santa Cruz say dozens of protesters who were occupying the university's main administrative building have ended their protest.

A subway passenger stabbed to death in front of horrified straphangers has been identified as 36-year-old Dwight Johnson of Brooklyn.

Vice President Joe Biden told Iowa Democrats on Saturday that the Senate handed the president a big victory with its decision to move forward with debate on sweeping legislation to overhaul the nation's health care system.