BERLIN – It’s a novel twist on the vending machine: in go the coins, out comes a nugget of gold. TG-Gold-Super-Markt, a company based in Reutlingen, southwestern Germany, is developing a machine to dispense pieces of gold as small as one gram in ornamental boxes for about euro30 ($42). CEO …

ISLAMABAD – Warplanes and helicopter gunships pounded suspected militant positions in Pakistan’s troubled northwest on Sunday, killing 11 Taliban fighters, intelligence officials said. The government also upped the stakes in its conflict with Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, offering a reward of $615,000 for information leading to Mehsud’s capture or …

LONDON – People infected with the virus that causes AIDS should start treatment earlier than currently recommended, the World Health Organization said Monday. The U.N. agency issued new guidance advising doctors to start giving patients AIDS drugs a year or two earlier than usual. The advice could double the number …

An Army psychiatrist who reportedly feared an impending war deployment is in custody as the sole suspect in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood in Texas that left 12 dead and 31 wounded, an Army official said Thursday night. The gunman, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, first said to have been …

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt – China’s premier says Beijing will provide $10 billion in new loans to African nations over the next three years and has outlined a plan to cancel government debts for some of the poorest of those countries. At a two-day China-Africa summit that began on Sunday, Wen …

CARACAS – Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez says he will join a team of Cuban scientists on flights to “bomb clouds” to create rain amid a severe drought that has aroused public anger due to water and electricity rationing. Chavez, who has asked Venezuelans to take three-minute showers to save water, …

Morticians who use formaldehyde to embalm bodies have a higher risk of leukemia, researchers reported on Friday. They found deaths from one particular kind of leukemia, myeloid leukemia, increased the longer the workers were involved with embalming. Their study of more than 400 funeral workers is the first to look …

MUMBAI, India – Members of a Hindu hard-line political party on Friday ransacked the offices of an Indian television news channel in the western Indian city of Mumbai, using iron rods and baseball bats to beat employees and smash furniture. The office of IBN Lokmat, a television channel that broadcasts …

LONDON – Trade and oil considerations played a big part in the decision to include the Lockerbie bomber in a prisoner transfer agreement between Britain and Libya, a senior British official said in an interview published Saturday. Justice Secretary Jack Straw said trade, particularly a deal for oil company BP …

NEW DELHI – A large chimney under construction at a power plant in central India collapsed, killing at least 20 people and injuring five others, police said. As many as 100 workers were feared trapped under the rubble. The 250-foot chimney came crashing down Wednesday in the plant’s cafeteria, where …