McKINNEY, Texas — A 29-year-old man killed himself during a shootout with authorities after he drove a trailer filled with explosives into the parking lot of a suburban Dallas police station and started firing at the building, officials said Wednesday.

WASHINGTON — Researchers are warning that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is a bigger mess than the government claims and that a lot of crude is lurking deep below the surface, some of it settling perhaps in a critical undersea canyon off the Florida Panhandle.
The Skanner News Video: Gulf Shrimp Catch is Pitiful

WASHINGTON – Add another election-year hurdle for Democrats: President Barack Obama's forceful defense of the right of Muslims to build a mosque near the World Trade Center site.

SAN FRANCISCO — Gay couples who had been gearing up to get married in California this week had to put their wedding plans on hold once again after a federal appeals court said it first wanted to consider the constitutionality of the state's same-sex marriage ban.

ORANGEBURG, S.C. – A South Carolina mother who claimed her children drowned when their car careened into a river was charged with murder Tuesday after authorities said she confessed to suffocating the two toddlers and then faking the accident.

TOKYO — Japan lost its place as the world's No. 2 economy to China in the second quarter as receding global growth sapped momentum and stunted a shaky recovery.

BOGOTA, Colombia – A Boeing 737 jetliner with 131 passengers aboard crashed on landing and broke into three pieces at a Colombian island in the Caribbean early Monday. The region's governor said it was a miracle that only one person died.

LUCERNE VALLEY, Calif. – The crowd at the off-road race could almost touch the trucks as they hurtled and bounced over the desert sand. They were close enough for one mistake to end eight lives.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Companies using criminal records or bad credit reports to screen out job applicants might run afoul of anti-discrimination laws as the government steps up scrutiny of hiring policies that could hurt blacks and Hispanics.

NEW ORLEANS (NNPA) - It will be five years since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans on Aug. 29. The impact remains quite painful for many.