WASHINGTON (AP) - A final agreement nearly in hand, President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders are about to embark on one last sales job that will determine the outcome of the president's signature health care overhaul. It will come down to a phenomenal effort by congressional leaders and the White House to win over skittish lawmakers after a year of incendiary debate, even as Obama keeps up campaign-style appearances designed to fire up public support....

WASHINGTON (AP) - On Christmas Day, a passenger on a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit tried to blow up the plane with plastic explosives in his underwear. He failed, yet the very attempt shook the U.S. government, set federal agencies against each other and triggered months of political second-guessing. In fact, short of mass casualties, the attack allegedly attempted by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had exactly the kind of reaction that al-Qaida is after. And, it appears, t...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Toyota's massive recalls are bringing new scrutiny to the government's auto safety agency, prompting Congress to look at how federal safety officials have lived up to their mission of protecting motorists. A House panel on Thursday planned to examine the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's oversight of the auto industry in the latest congressional hearing linked to Toyota's recall of more than 8 million vehicles worldwide. Safety groups have accused NHTSA of b...

PATERSON, N.J. (AP) - A New Jersey man with apocalyptic visions is accused of years of terrorizing his family, raping his five daughters and impregnating three, beating his children with wooden boards and even moving at one point to avoid child welfare investigators. The nightmarish picture of a family subjected to more than a decade of threats and violence and largely cut off from the outside world is emerging in a state courthouse where prosecutors are preparing to have the man stand tria...

MEXICO CITY (AP) - The naming of Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim as the world's richest person - the first from a developing nation - underlines the loosening of America and Europe's stranglehold on the top spots in the billionaires' club. Slim's arrival at the top aroused both pride and anger in Mexico, where many see his fantastic wealth in a poverty-afflicted nation as a sign of what ails it....