story

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Thousands of people living on the outskirts of a burning fuel-storage site in Puerto Rico were urged to relocate Saturday to avoid toxic smoke still billowing from the fire. More than 1,500 people were evacuated after Friday’s earthshaking explosion at the Caribbean Petroleum Corp. in …

BERLIN – Chancellor Angela Merkel vowed Monday to have a new center-right German government in place by the time Germany marks 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9. She said tax cuts were possible in 2011, but rejected savings measures that might strangle an incipient …

MANILA, Philippines – Officials say rescuers have retrieved more than 160 dead from dozens of landslides that buried villages and cut off towns in the rain-soaked northern Philippines. About 450 people have been killed in the country’s worst flooding in 40 years after back-to-back storms started pounding the country’s north …

A pregnant teenager has died after contracting the H1N1 flu. The 17-year-old, who was from the Scottish Borders in Scotland, has not yet been named. When she contracted influenza A (H1N1), she was already pregnant, which makes women more likely to face difficulties related to the virus. Following the death, …

A Texas man was arrested this week on federal charges stemming from an arson at a construction site that may have ties to eco-terrorism, according to a criminal complaint. Former California resident Stephen James Murphy was taken into custody at his home in Arlington, Texas, Wednesday, said FBI Los Angeles …

JOHANNESBURG – Reviled internationally for gunning down unarmed pro-democracy protesters last month, the military government of Guinea has gained a lifeline — thanks to a $7 billion mining deal it says it obtained with a Chinese company. Human rights groups decried the deal while China kept a low profile, not …

Some research has hinted that women are more sensitive to pain than men are, but a new study suggests that women actually get over their discomfort more quickly. Researchers found that when they exposed 32 adults to a moderately painful stimulus — a heat-producing probe placed on the skin — …

PASADENA, Calif. – A new NASA radar could help predict the timing of a mega-earthquake hitting Southern California, KTLA-TV reported. Scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., have reportedly begun using a new radar to give them a 3-D close-up of the San Andreas Fault, a continental transform …

LONDON – Guinness World Records said Friday that 113-year-old British World War I veteran Henry Allingham has become the world’s oldest man. The previous holder of the title, Tomoji Tanabe, died in his sleep in southern Japan earlier Friday at the age of 113. Allingham is one of only two …

STAMFORD, Conn. – Connecticut officials were repeatedly warned about the dangers posed by a chimpanzee who later mauled and blinded a woman and were urged — more than three years before the attack — to take action, but failed to do so, according to records obtained by The Associated Press. …