LITTLETON, Colo. (AP) — Convicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich entered a federal prison in Colorado on Thursday to begin a 14-year sentence for corruption, the latest chapter in the downfall of a charismatic politician that seemed more like a bizarre reality TV show than a legal battle. The 55-year-old Democrat pulled up in a […]

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Arson investigators in Las Vegas are probing a fire that critically injured a man on the unoccupied 22nd floor of the downtown Golden Nugget hotel. Las Vegas fire spokesman Tim Szymanski says firefighters found the unconscious man in a guest room in the hotel’s Rush Tower after fire sprinklers doused flames […]

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s health ministry says an additional 7,000 women were fitted with potentially faulty French-made breast implants, raising the total in the U.K. to about 47,000. The ministry said Thursday that the new cases follow confirmation by French authorities that implants manufactured before 2001 by the nowdefunct French company Poly Implant Prothese, or […]

Skydiving daredevil Felix Baumgartner is more than halfway toward his goal of setting a world record for the highest jump. A spokeswoman says Baumgartner took a practice jump Thursday from more than 13 miles high over New Mexico. He’s aiming for nearly 23 miles this summer. He lifted off from Roswell, N.M., aboard a helium […]

CLINTON, Md. (AP) — Hot dogs. Bison Wellington. Baby back ribs. President Barack Obama is roaming all over the culinary map this week. The president made a lunchtime detour to a barbeque and ribs joint Thursday on his way back to the White House after a speech about energy policy. The president came away from […]

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — The House has passed New Hampshire’s 10-year transportation improvement plan which includes widening Interstate 93 from Salem to Windham. The House passed the plan Thursday on a voice vote. The Senate considers it next. The latest update to the program takes the I-93 widening project off the deferred list and places […]

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Shell Oil Co. has chosen a site near Pittsburgh for a major new petrochemical refinery that could provide a huge economic boost to the region. Dan Carlson, Shell’s general manager of New Business Development, said Thursday that the company signed a land option agreement with Horsehead Corp. to evaluate a site near […]

PARIS ( AP) — France’s defense minister says an unidentified attacker fatally shot three soldiers on a street in southern France. It was the second such incident over the past week in which French soldiers were shot in public places. In Thursday’s attack, a police official said the three uniformed soldiers had been standing at […]

NAIROBI, Kenya ( AP) — In the second YouTube video in a week to highlight an African conflict, George Clooney makes an illegal and dangerous trip to the southern reaches of Sudan, where the actor witnesses what an American activist said Thursday was likely a Chinese-made missile sail overhead. Clooney’s four- minute video highlights attacks […]

LONDON (AP) — Archaeologists excavating near Cambridge have stumbled upon a rare and mysterious find: The skeleton of a 7th- century teenager buried in an ornamental bed along with a goldand garnet cross, an iron knife and a purse of glass beads. Experts say the grave is an example of an unusual Anglo- Saxon funerary […]