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PANAMA CITY, Panama – President Martin Torrijos signed a bill authorizing a referendum on widening the Panama Canal, and said that undertaking the biggest modification to the waterway since it opened in 1914 is vital to the Central American nation’s future. The measure signed Monday means Panamanians will vote Oct. …

JERUSALEM – Shin Bet security chief Yuval Diskin said Sunday he believes an Israeli soldier who was captured three weeks ago by militants from the Gaza Strip is alive, an official said. Diskin made the comment during a closed meeting of Cabinet officials in Jerusalem, said one of the officials …

WASHINGTON – Insurance companies can’t promise full coverage for property damage from a terror attack without federal help, industry leaders told a House panel Tuesday. But nearly five years after the Sept. 11 terror attacks, lawmakers warned the industry that Congress cannot remain a last-resort insurer for terrorism-related losses. At …

NEW YORK – “World Trade Center,” Oliver Stone‘s movie about the rescue of two police officers from the towers on Sept. 11, will donate 10 percent of its opening weekend box office receipts to a ground zero memorial and three other Sept. 11-related charities. The Paramount Pictures film, starring Nicolas …

ROCK HILL, S.C. – Democrats pulled an Internet ad that showed flag-draped coffins Friday after Republicans and at least two Democrats demanded it be taken down on grounds the image was insensitive and not fit for a political commercial. The ad by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee called for a …

WASHINGTON – The planet’s temperature has climbed to levels not seen in thousands of years, warming that has begun to affect plants and animals, researchers report in Tuesday’s issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The Earth has been warming at a rate of 0.36 degree Fahrenheit per …

BAGHDAD, Iraq – The senior commander of U.S. forces in western Iraq on Tuesday tried to play down a classified intelligence report indicating that American troops had failed to dampen the insurgency in volatile Anbar province. The classified report found that political and security conditions in the western province that …

WASHINGTON – This time there were no tortured explanations, no heels dug in, no long, slow drip of revelation or fight for redemption. Republican Rep. Mark Foley, of Florida, just up and quit after his e-mails expressing undue interest in a 16-year-old male page were exposed to the nation. Less …

KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghans commemorated the fifth anniversary of the assassination of an iconic anti-Taliban commander Saturday under the shadow of the deadliest bombing in Kabul since the overthrow of the hardline Islamic regime. Afghan soldiers searched cars and set up checkpoints on roads leading into the city, a day …

TBILISI, Georgia – South Ossetian officials said their forces shot down a Georgian government helicopter that invaded the breakaway province’s airspace Sunday — but Georgian military officials denied the claim. South Ossetian government spokeswoman Irina Gagloyeva said the Georgian Interior Ministry helicopter was downed after its crew failed to respond …