story

EVERETT, Wash. – A 10-year-old Everett area boy is listed in critical condition at Children’s Hospital in Seattle after being buried in a sandbox by his playmates. The boy has been identified by his family as Cody Porter. His half brother, 30-year-old Joshua Quantrille, says Cody was playing with Quantrille’s …

LONDON – Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher spent the night in a London hospital for medical checks and returned home Saturday. Thatcher, her arm held by a hospital staff member, waved to photographers before ducking into a Jaguar car outside St. Thomas’s Hospital in south London, where she had …

WASHINGTON – Authorities identified the remains of two more U.S. contractors kidnapped in Iraq and are awaiting forensic testing on remains of a third body, the FBI said Thursday. FBI spokesman Richard Kolko identified the two men as Paul Johnson-Reuben of Minneapolis and Joshua Munns of Redding, Calif. They were …

BERLIN – Not to be outdone by his newest rivals, Germany’s original orphaned polar bear cub Knut is back and on the big screen as the star of a documentary detailing the first year of his life spent at the Berlin Zoo. “Knut and Friends,” or “Knut und Seine Freunde” …

Mysteriously, four spacecraft that flew past the Earth have each displayed unexpected anomalies in their motions. These newfound enigmas join the so-called “Pioneer anomaly” as hints that unexplained forces may appear to act on spacecraft. A decade ago, after rigorous analyses, anomalies were seen with the identical Pioneer 10 and …

ALBANY N.Y. – In one historic hour Monday, Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s once-unlimited political career will dissolve into disgrace, undone by hypocrisy, and Lt. Gov. David Paterson will be sworn in as New York’s first black governor. The transition in top Democrats means a tone of bipartisanship that Spitzer promised could …

CHICAGO – Gorillas on Weight Watchers? Polar bears slurping sugar-free Jell-O shots? Giraffes nibbling alfalfa biscuits? The days of letting visitors throw marshmallows to the animals are mostly history at zoos around the country, replaced by a growing focus on diet and nutrition that parallels the fitness craze in humans. …

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. – When more than a dozen lambs and sheep were slaughtered on a Shelburne farm last fall, wildlife officials suspected either a wolf that had escaped from captivity or a rogue mutt on a hungry rampage. But after the culprit animal was killed and examined, they found themselves …

WASHINGTON – The explosion of a star halfway across the universe was so huge it set a record for the most distant object that could be seen on Earth by the naked eye. The aging star, in a previously unknown galaxy, exploded in a gamma ray burst 7.5 billion light …

SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio Spurs guard Tony Parker was cited for impeding traffic and failing to produce a valid Texas driver’s license during a traffic stop in which “Desperate Housewives” actress Eva Longoria was his passenger. The incident happened about 12:45 a.m. Saturday. After seeing a car stopped, a …