The human genome — our DNA — may be more complex than scientists previously thought, with greater ethnic divergence. In a new study published in Nature, researchers report there are fairly large variations between four ethnic groups in 12 percent of the genome. The findings may affect research on the …

LONDON – Prime Minister Tony Blair urged Britons on Wednesday to support the tough battle their forces are fighting against insurgents in Afghanistan, and he denied the troops have inadequate equipment. During his weekly question session in Parliament, Blair said British commanders, who are currently leading the NATO forces in …

HOLLYWOOD, Florida – Barack Obama may have a “funny name,” as he once said — but it might just catch on among the nation’s newborns. A Florida couple became among the country’s first to bestow it on their child, even before most news outlets had declared the Illinois senator the …

WASHINGTON – World leaders at an emergency economic summit are moving to sharpen detection of risky investing and regulatory weak spots, hoping to avoid future financial meltdowns like the one now threatening the global economy. In the largest gathering of its kind here in nearly a decade, President George W. …

BAGHDAD – Ten Iraqi insurgent groups have agreed to escalate attacks against U.S. and Iraqi forces to derail the proposed U.S.-Iraqi security agreement, an Internet monitoring service said Tuesday. The declaration against “the agreement of disgrace” was announced Nov. 4 in an audio speech by Sheik Abu Wael, a top …

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – NASA’s revolutionary new space water recycling system is having serious hiccups. The $154 million device for turning astronauts’ urine and sweat into drinking water aboard the international space station shut down again Friday, and engineers on the ground were scrambling to figure out why. The astronauts …

NEW YORK – Citigroup Inc. is shedding approximately 53,000 more employees in the coming quarters as the banking giant struggles to steady itself after suffering massive losses from deteriorating debt. The New York-based bank, which has already reduced its assets by about 20 percent since the first quarter of the …

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. – A Kentucky widow whose husband died after gallbladder surgery at a Veterans Affairs hospital in southern Illinois has settled her wrongful-death lawsuit against the VA. An attorney for Katrina Shank says she agreed to a $975,000 settlement in the August 2007 death of 50-year-old Robert …

DENVER – In the push toward more energy independence, massive infrastructure projects that will help to deliver it have clashed with cherished rights of land ownership. Proven natural gas reserves have jumped 10 of the past 11 years, according to the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration, and thousands of miles …

PENSACOLA, Florida – A Florida man’s quest to find hundreds of U.S. Marines buried anonymously after one of World War II’s bloodiest battles could lead to the largest identification of American war dead in history. Researchers used ground-penetrating radar, tediously reviewed thousands of military documents and interviewed hundreds of others …