NEW YORK (AP) — Pepsi is hoping to win back soda drinkers with a compromise. Some people don’t like the calories in regular soda, but loathe the taste of diet. So the nation’s No. 2 cola company is rolling out “Pepsi Next,” a drink that has about half the calories of regular Pepsi at 60 […]

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez isn’t naming a substitute as he prepares to head to Cuba for surgery to remove a potentially cancerous tumor, and he assured supporters on Thursday that he will be around for a long time. “ I will live! I will live!” Chavez said, pounding the table, during […]

SOUTH PLAINFIELD, N.J. (AP) — Fire officials in New Jersey say four of the five people killed in an early morning house fire were children and that all the victims were found on the second floor of the converted farmhouse. South Plainfield Fire Chief Thomas Scalera says by the time firefighters arrived early Thursday, flames […]

OWENSBORO, Ky. (AP) — One area in Kentucky still won’t be able to buy alcohol — a decision made by the flip of a coin. A vote held Wednesday on whether to allow alcohol sales in the Graham Precinct in Daviess County ended with a 21-21 tie. So officials flipped a half-dollar coin to decide […]

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. ( AP) — Stargazers of the world are getting a treat this weekend. On Saturday and again Sunday, Venus, Jupiter and Earth’s moon converge for a brilliant night show. Venus and Jupiter already are lining up in the western sky. In mid-February, the two planets were 20 degrees apart from a viewing […]

DETROIT (AP) — A Detroit area man caught on a gas station surveillance video boasting about his then-9-year-old daughter’s driving skills was sentenced Thursday to two years of probation for having the girl drive him around because he had been drinking. Shawn Weimer’s demeanor was much different Thursday than it had been in the early […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The reviews are in, and Mick Jagger sizes up President Barack Obama’s singing of the blues this week as “courageous.” The Rolling Stones frontman says the president did pretty well when he joined in during a White House blues concert earlier in the week. And Jagger said in an AP interview Thursday […]

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — The United States, Europe and Arab countries were set today to back a proposal for Syrian President Bashar Assad to step aside and allow in humanitarian assistance to end a brutal crackdown against opponents. American, European and Arab officials are meeting in a major international “Friends of Syria” conference in Tunisia […]