Officers testify about kids tied up in Walmart parking lot by their parents

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) - A 7-year-old girl found bound in the parking lot of a Kansas Walmart told police she was hitting her siblings and asked to be tied up and blindfolded, an officer testified Friday during a preliminary hearing for the girl's parents. Deborah Gomez, 44, and her husband, Adolfo Gomez Jr., 52, were arrested in June and charged with two ...

Director of 'Willy Wonka,' dead at 83

1873 dime sells for a pretty penny: $1.6M

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A dime made in 1873 has cost someone a pretty penny: It sold for $1.6 million at auction. An anonymous bidder won the pristine coin, said Chris Napolitano, president of Stack's Bowers Galleries, which auctioned it during an American Numismatic Association convention. With a 15 percent buyer's fee tacked on, the final price for the coin was $1.84 million, ...

Caged pit bull dies in heat wave

FONTANA . (AP) - A caged pit bull with no water and no shade has been found dead in a Southern California backyard during a triple-digit heat wave. A second dog was near death when it was rescued by a Fontana animal control officer responding to a neighbor's tip. The Riverside Press-Enterprise says 26-year-old Fontana dog owner Jose ...

Postal Service reports $5.2B loss in 3rd Q

Sibling rivalry will play out at AARP spelling bee

Lawyers: Colo. shooting suspect mentally ill

Facebook pressured to remove page deemed racist

Zimmerman seeks 'stand your ground' hearing

Romney, Obama bemoan attack ads but both campaigns benefit from them

Man fears false teeth eaten by dog after fight

ATHENS, Ga. (AP) - A Georgia man told police he fears a dog ate his false teeth after a fight with his roommate. Police say the 49-year-old Athens man told them that his roommate threw the teeth out the door in a fit of rage. The Athens Banner-Herald reports (http://bit.ly/NJYuJ5) that police were called to the man's home ...

Man orders flat-screen TV, gets gun instead

WASHINGTON (AP) - Musician Seth Horvitz is used to tickling the ivories, not squeezing a trigger. So when a UPS delivery worker dropped off a military-grade semiautomatic rifle instead of the flat-screen TV he had ordered from an Amazon.com third-party seller, he didn't dare touch it at first. "When I first identified it as a rifle, as a ...

Flying concrete kills woman in 4-car crash

MODESTO (AP) - Authorities say a driver was killed when a flying chunk of concrete slammed into her truck's windshield during a four-vehicle crash on Highway 99 in Modesto. The California Highway Patrol says a 52-year-old woman from Antelope was killed in the chain-reaction accident around 11 a.m. Thursday. Her identity has not been released. CHP Officer Eric ...

Temple gunman shot himself; still no motive

Singer Randy Travis arrested naked, charged with DWI

YouTube sensation: Philadelphia bicyclist has a cat is his co-pilot

NYPD: Merchant held for ransom, tortured for month

Obama lifts ban on Guantanamo transfers

Boy or Girl?' Gender new challenge for schools

Odd News

COUNCIL MEMBERS ABSTAIN FROM VOTE ON ABSTAINING: YPSILANTI, Mich. (AP) - Three members of a Michigan city council have abstained from voting on a measure that would have prevented them from abstaining on future votes.

Jurors deadlock on Jodi Arias penalty; retrial set

Man shot to death while questioned in Boston probe

Damage: Thousands of homes, $1.5-$2B

50 hurt when Indiana school buses crash

Side Briefs

NEARLY ALL US STATES SEE HEFTY DROP IN TEEN BIRTHS: NEW YORK (AP) - The nation's record-low teen birth rate stems from robust declines in nearly every state, but most dramatically in several Mountain States and among Hispanics, according to a new government report.

Broke no laws, IRS official says, then takes 5th

Tornado death toll lowered to 24

Gay Fla. teen charged for her underage girlfriend

Pentagon wants $450M for Guantanamo

Texas judge: Lesbian couple can't cohabitate