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CANBERRA, Australia – Australia (search) will send 450 more troops to southern Iraq to help protect Japanese engineers and bolster the country’s fledgling democracy, Prime Minister John Howard (search) announced Tuesday. The new detachment will include a cavalry squadron, infantry company and a team to train local forces, Howard told …

I recently got a substantial raise. Should I be applying the extra money toward retirement or debt? The first thing to do is celebrate: Throw a party or book a table for two at an overpriced restaurant. (After all, not too many people are getting fat raises these days.) Once …

NEW YORK – Heidi Klum (search) prides herself on being practical. The German supermodel married Grammy-winning singer Seal (search) on a beach in Mexico, shops for groceries online and feeds her 14-month-old daughter, Leni, whatever she eats. “We tried baby food for, like a month,” a seven-months-pregnant Klum tells Vitals …

Bargains aren’t as plentiful this year — but they can be found. Here are five tips. SUMMER TRAVEL is heating up. Americans will take a whopping 334 million trips (defined as one person traveling 50 miles or more, one-way) this summer. That’s a 3.2% increase over last year, projects the …

WASHINGTON – China’s ambassador to the United States said Sunday that he believed envoys from six nations are very close to agreeing on a joint statement that could eventually lead to North Korea (search) abandoning its nuclear weapons program. An earlier round of talks recessed on Aug. 7 with no …

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Seven U.S. Marines were killed in two separate attacks west of Baghdad (search), where American forces are trying to seal a major border infiltration route for foreign fighters, the military said Tuesday. The deaths pushed the U.S. military death toll in Iraq past 1,800. One of the …

WARSAW – A Polish man visiting a brothel was surprised to find his wife working there, Reuters reported. Click here to read the full story. The woman, who had told her husband she had been working at a store in town to make extra money, Reuters reported. “I was dumfounded. …

SAN FRANCISCO – Olympic gold medalist Antonio Pettigrew admitted publicly for the first time Thursday that he used performance-enhancing substances during a long, successful sprinting career in which he passed all drug tests. The admission came during the last day of testimony for the government in the trial of his …

WASHINGTON – The House passed a $290 billion farm bill Wednesday with a strong veto-proof majority, offering more subsidies for farmers, food stamps for the poor and special projects that lawmakers can bring home to voters this election year. The 318-106 vote for the five-year bill came despite President Bush’s …

Terror leader Usama bin Laden will release a new Internet message dealing with Israel and the Palestinians, a terrorism monitoring group said Thursday. The announcement of the impending comments by the head of Al Qaeda was posted on Web sites often used by terror groups, the SITE Intelligence Group said. …