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.

An attorney for Fisk University accused Tennessee's attorney general of wanting to close the school during the first day of a trial to determine whether it can sell a share in its famous Stieglitz art collection.
The Nashville-based, historically black university ranked 118 in the country by US News and World Report and is included in the Princeton Review's best 360 colleges.
At issue is whether Fisk can change the conditions the late painter Georgia O'Keeffe placed upon her bequest of 101 works of art to the school. Fisk argues it is in such financial straits that it is in danger of shutting down and cannot maintain the collection as agreed.

(NNPA) - As Fox News and other media under the grip of the conservative right wing continue a steady drumbeat against U.S. Representatives Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters, Democrats and those on the political left grow increasingly concerned that Rangel and Waters are being successfully converted into the new Willie and Wilma Horton.

RAMLE, Israel — Israeli police said Friday the suspect in stabbings in three states also was a suspect in a separate stabbing attack in Israel earlier this year, but charges were never pressed.

LONDON (AP) -- WikiLeaks spokesman Julian Assange said Thursday his organization is preparing to release the rest of the secret Afghan war documents it has on file.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — The war-crimes trial of a young Canadian detainee will be put on hold for at least 30 days due to the illness of his Pentagon-appointed attorney, a defense official said Friday.

ATLANTA — A possible suspect in a string of 20 stabbings that terrorized people across three states and left five dead was arrested at an airport as he tried to board a plane for Israel, officials said Thursday.

NEW YORK (AP) -- A federal judge in California ordered Wells Fargo & Co. to change what he called "unfair and deceptive business practices" that led customers into paying multiple overdraft fees, and to pay $203 million back to customers.