CAIRO, Egypt – A top Hamas official said the militant group will not recognize Israel but will abide, for now, by past agreements Palestinian leaders made with the Jewish state. He also lashed out at the more moderate Fatah party for refusing to participate in a national unity Palestinian government. …

BOSTON – The state board that oversees pharmacies voted Tuesday to require Wal-Mart to stock emergency contraception pills at its Massachusetts pharmacies, a spokeswoman at the Department of Public Health said. The unanimous decision by the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy comes two weeks after three women sued Wal-Mart in state …

WASHINGTON – Breaking with the White House, the House Republican who chairs a panel that oversees the National Security Agency wants Congress to change a 1978 foreign intelligence law following the disclosure of President Bush’s eavesdropping program. Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., chairwoman of the House Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical …

Unsettled fights between parents impair children’s emotional development, new studies show. Mom and Dad may shout till they’re red in the face. They may stew in stony silence. Whether their unresolved conflict results in hostility or indifference to one another, it takes its toll on their children, find University of …

You can’t have too much of a good thing — especially if you’re a fan of salad, and you happen to live in Gary, W.Va. Dozens of dedicated dieters participating in a local weight management program together lost a whopping 500 pounds … and celebrated their accomplishment by chowing down …

NEW YORK – A Pakistani immigrant, angered by the war in Iraq and the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, plotted to bomb one of the city’s busiest subway stations in 2004 to teach America “a good lesson,” a prosecutor said Monday at a federal conspiracy trial. The defendant, Shahawar Matin Siraj, …

WASHINGTON – Finally, Bill Clinton can joke about his past. The former president cracked up a meeting Wednesday, spicing up an otherwise dry, technical talk on the need for better coordination of global relief work. In the midst of touting the importance of creating infrastructure to deliver aid to the …

CHICAGO – Six employees at a seafood restaurant in Houston were fired this week after skipping work to take part in a pro-immigration march. In Detroit, 21 immigrants lost their jobs as meat cutters after attending a similar protest last month. And several students at a high school near Tampa, …

ROME – Experts are trying to crack the code that the recently captured Cosa Nostra boss used for communicating with mobsters and other accomplices across Sicily, Italy’s top gangland fighter said Wednesday. Piero Grasso, national anti-Mafia prosecutor, said Bernardo Provenzano was typing coded notes when police burst in on him …

MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan – Militants ambushed a convoy of Pakistani troops in a northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border Thursday, killing seven soldiers and wounding 22, an army spokesman said. Hundreds of soldiers backed by helicopter gunships hunted for the attackers, believed to have fled to a village near …