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BAGHDAD, Iraq – As U.S. military deaths in Iraq (search) approached 2,000 on Tuesday, the chief spokesman for the American-led multinational force called on reporters covering the conflict not to look at the event as a milestone. U.S. Army Lt. Col. Steve Boylan, director of the force’s combined press center, …

WASHINGTON – The Senate began wrapping up consideration of a wide-ranging energy bill Thursday that its sponsors said would launch a new era of developing cleaner fossil fuels (search), expand the use of renewable energy and foster conservation. Senate leaders said they anticipated the bill could come to a vote …

ATLANTA – Furious that their romance was ending, a 78-year-old great-grandmother shot her 85-year-old ex-beau to death as he read the newspaper in a senior citizens home, police said. “I did it and I’d do it again!” Lena Driskell (search) yelled to officers who arrived at the home June 10, …

WASHINGTON – Amtrak (search) would have to end all of its cross-country routes, service between Chicago and New Orleans and the Auto Train to Florida under big cuts in taxpayer subsidies approved Wednesday by a House subcommittee. The proposal was part of a transportation bill that would reduce Amtrak’s budget …

An Idaho public defender became a very public offender after she delivered a crude note to county commissioners. Kootenai County (search) defense attorney Linda Payne, angry that her raise was $5,000 less than she’d been told, walked into the commissioners’ offices last Thursday and dropped off a tube of lipstick, …

VENTURA, Calif. – Actor Dana Elcar (search), whose role as Peter Thornton on ABC’s adventure series “MacGyver (search)” depicted his real-life struggle with glaucoma and blindness, has died. He was 77. He died Monday of complications from pneumonia at Community Memorial Hospital in Ventura, the Los Angeles Times reported Friday. …

CHAMBERY, France – A truck loaded with tires and another carrying paint caught fire along with two other vehicles Saturday inside an 8-mile-long Alpine tunnel between France and Italy, killing at least one person and shutting down the roadway, officials and a news reports said. Some trucks reportedly were trapped …

LONDON – Oil prices fell by almost $1 a barrel Wednesday after the U.S. government released data that showed domestic supplies of oil, gasoline and distillate fuel rose last week. Light sweet crude for August delivery declined by 94 cents to settle at $57.26 a barrel on the New York …

WASHINGTON – The government announced Thursday an 11-nation crackdown on Internet piracy (search) organizations responsible for stealing copies of the latest “Star Wars” film and other movies, games and software programs worth at least $50 million. FBI agents and investigators in the other nations conducted 90 searches, starting Wednesday, arresting …

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Sen. Robert C. Byrd’s new memoir reveals both his encyclopedic knowledge of political history and the unlikely inspiration that helped launch his own political career: A Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan (search). It was a Klan leader who motivated the young Byrd during his short-lived …