SAN FRANCISCO – In pursuit of his goal to kick God out of government, atheist Michael Newdow has filed a lawsuit in federal court in an effort to remove the words “In God We Trust” from all U.S. coins and bills. Newdow, who is a physician and a lawyer, has …

NEW YORK – A reputed mobster who disappeared in the middle of his waterfront corruption trial and was feared killed by the Mafia was acquitted in absentia Tuesday along with two officials of the dockworkers union. Larry Ricci, an alleged capo in the Genovese crime family, was last seen Oct. …

WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld met Monday with Ahmad Chalabi, the former Iraqi exile tainted by the since-discredited claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Chalabi is a now a deputy prime minister of Iraq and is considered a likely candidate to be the next prime …

LOS ANGELES – Alternative singer-songwriter Bebe (search) carried Thursday’s Latin Grammys into a new era, with the awards show being broadcast in Spanish for the first time and showcasing a broad cross-section of music, including hip-hop, reggaeton, R&B and rock. Bebe, of Valencia, Spain, led the pack with five nominations: …

Women may be more likely to survive lung cancer than men, new research shows. The researchers can’t explain those survival differences. Biology might play a role, with lung cancer behaving differently in men and women, they write. Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths for U.S. men and …

WASHINGTON – The House voted Wednesday to scold a San Francisco-based federal appeals court for dismissing a lawsuit by parents outraged that a school district surveyed their young children about sex. Over objections from some Democrats who complained Republicans were seeking the kind of judicial activism the GOP normally denounces, …

PARIS – France will impose curfews under a state-of-emergency law and call up police reservists to stop rioting that has spread out of Paris’ suburbs and into nearly 300 cities and towns across the country, the prime minister said Monday, calling a return to order “our No. 1 responsibility.” The …

While admitting “we were wrong” about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, President Bush’s national security adviser on Sunday rejected assertions that the president manipulated intelligence and misled the American people. Bush relied on the collective judgment of the intelligence community when he determined that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein had weapons of …

BELLEVILLE, Ind. – An 18-year-old suspected of gunning down his girlfriend’s parents and fleeing with her in tow returned to Pennsylvania Tuesday and was charged with double murder and kidnapping. David Ludwig was flown back from Indiana — where he and his 14-year-old girlfriend, Kara Beth Borden, were arrested some …

KINSHASA, Congo – U.N. troops killed as many as 60 militiamen in a stepped-up campaign to clear northeastern Congo (search) of rogue gunmen who have preyed on residents and are suspected in the recent slaying of nine peacekeepers, U.N. officials said Wednesday. The peacekeepers, backed by an attack helicopter and …