Coosa Valley Classifieds

A federal judge in Southern California rules that the U.S. military's ban on openly gay service members is unconstitutional.



United States - Southern California - United States armed forces - California - Gay Lesbian and Bisexual

The Florida pastor whose plan to burn Qurans on Sept. 11 generated worldwide outrage among Muslims and pressure by the U.S. government to relent now says he might not cancel the protest after all.



World Trade Center - Mosque - Florida - Islam - Imam

A woman suspended from her job and escorted from a Kraft Foods plant in northeast Philadelphia returns with a handgun, killing two people and critically injuring a third, police say.



Philadelphia - Kraft Foods - Recreation - Guns - Competition Shooting

Most U.S. adults are still not sure when they will see certain changes from major healthcare reforms passed earlier this year, according to a new survey



Health care - United States - Health care reform - Politics - Health

It's the iPhone 4's carrier, and not the antenna, that's holding back prospective buyers, according to a poll done by Piper Jaffray.



IPhone - Piper Jaffray - Verizon - Verizon Communications - Apple

A new virus based in e-mails with the subject line "Here You have" began running rampant Thursday, hitting corporate America hard.



Security - Malicious Software - United States - Viruses - Detection and Removal Tools

U.S. Web surfers are spending more time socializing on Facebook than searching with Google, according to new data from researchers at comScore Inc.



Google - Facebook - comScore - Search - Search Engine

President Barack Obama denies that rising drug violence made Mexico look increasingly like Colombia at the height of its drug war, rebuffing comments by his secretary of state.



Colombia - Barack Obama - Mexico - United States - President

The U.S. military almost launched fighter jets and discussed a possible shoot-down when an errant Navy drone briefly veered into restricted airspace near Washington last month, a senior military official said.



United States - United States armed forces - Fighter aircraft - Military - United States Navy

The FDA is warning doctors that a class of injectable drugs used in MRI medical imaging scans can cause a rare and sometimes fatal condition in patients with kidney disease.



Food and Drug Administration - Magnetic resonance imaging - Medical imaging - Health - Nephropathy

Airlines are nickel-and-diming passengers, and now a coalition of three travel advocacy groups is fighting back.



Airline - Transportation - Travel - Recreation - Air

The international police agency Interpol warned governments worldwide on Thursday of an increased risk of terror attacks if the planned burning of the Quran by a Florida pastor goes ahead.



Florida - Police - United States - Interpol - Warfare and Conflict

Donald Trump is offering to buy out one of the major investors in the real estate partnership that controls the site near ground zero where a Muslim group wants to build a 13-story Islamic center and mosque.



Donald Trump - Real estate - Islam - Mosque - Business

President Obama's verbal jabs at John Boehner Wednesday could very well have been a preview of the next two years, if Republicans take back control of Congress this November.



Barack Obama - John Boehner - Republican - United States Congress - President

No more talking Flash trash: the program that Steve Jobs so seems to revile appears to be good-to-go for use for apps on the iPhone and Apple's other mobile devices.



Apple - Steve Jobs - iPhone - Adobe Flash - Adobe Systems

A federal judge in Southern California rules that the U.S. military's ban on openly gay service members is unconstitutional.

The Florida pastor whose plan to burn Qurans on Sept. 11 generated worldwide outrage among Muslims and pressure by the U.S. government to relent now says he might not cancel the protest after all.

A massive fire is roaring through a mostly residential neighborhood in the San Francisco suburb of San Bruno.

A woman suspended from her job and escorted from a Kraft Foods plant in northeast Philadelphia returns with a handgun, killing two people and critically injuring a third, police say.

The U.S. military almost launched fighter jets and discussed a possible shoot-down when an errant Navy drone briefly veered into restricted airspace near Washington last month, a senior military official said.

After a rocky start, the federal BP claims manager is now retreating from his targets and acknowledging that the process will take longer than he had pledged.

A spokesman for Iran's mission to the U.N. says the American hiker who will be freed this weekend is the only woman among the three.

Authorities in the San Antonio area searched Thursday for a man who drove into a flooded road, making him the fourth person swept away by floodwaters from the remnants of Tropical Storm Hermine.

Donald Trump is offering to buy out one of the major investors in the real estate partnership that controls the site near ground zero where a Muslim group wants to build a 13-story Islamic center and mosque.

U.S. appeals court puts on hold Judge's ban on federal funding of human embryonic stem cell research.

The birthday boy is missing, but Kyron Horman's parents are holding parties to mark his eighth birthday anyway.

The leaking oil well is capped, the oil is degrading and the coast is clear for fishermen to resume commercial operations, but fishermen on the Gulf coast are eyeing the economic tides and worrying.

The police officer who shot and killed a knife-wielding Guatemalan immigrant whose death has sparked three days of violent protests in Los Angeles had been involved in two previous shootings, according to a media report.

Lawyers for a Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a plane near Detroit on Christmas said Thursday that they've talked to prosecutors about resolving the case with a deal.

Thousands of business owners, fishermen and others along the Gulf Coast are confronting a conundrum. Accept a piece of BP's $20 billion claims fund or sue for a bigger payday.

This species in Yellowstone National Park is appearing in greater numbers than ever before — people.

With nearly 170 homes destroyed by a Colorado wildfire that shows no signs of relenting, wind gusts of up to 60 mph threaten to drive flames into the heart of Boulder.

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that Hazleton, Pa., may not enforce its crackdown on illegal immigrants, dealing another blow to 4-year-old regulations that inspired similar measures around the country.

A Metrolink commuter train struck and killed two people who may have been sleeping on the tracks and injured a third in Orange County on Thursday, authorities said.

The imam behind a proposed Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero cautioned Wednesday that moving the facility could endanger national security.

President Barack Obama says his chief of staff would be a terrific Chicago mayor, but he expects Rahm Emanuel to hold off on deciding whether to enter the race until after the midterm elections.

A spokesman for Iran's mission to the U.N. says the American hiker who will be freed this weekend is the only woman among the three.

President Barack Obama denies that rising drug violence made Mexico look increasingly like Colombia at the height of its drug war, rebuffing comments by his secretary of state.

The international police agency Interpol warned governments worldwide on Thursday of an increased risk of terror attacks if the planned burning of the Quran by a Florida pastor goes ahead.

A London-based journalism nonprofit is working with website WikiLeaks and TV and print media in several countries on programs and stories based on what is described as massive cache of classified U.S. military field reports related to the Iraq war.

North Korean children are already singing the praises of the young man in line to become the reclusive nation's next leader, analysts say, but the rest of the world doesn't even know the age, or, until recently, how to spell the name of Kim Jong Il's youngest son.

An animal-rights activist says an endangered right whale stranded on a beach in southern Brazil for two days is too weak to be rescued and returned safely to the sea.

A suicide car bomber exploded at the gate to Mogadishu's airport Thursday, and suicide bombers in a second vehicle rushed toward the terminal before exploding themselves short of their goal, officials said. Up to 14 people were killed, including five attackers.

The suicide car bombing is one of the North Caucasus region's worst attacks in years, officials say.

Some victims in a botched hostage rescue of a tourist bus in the Philippines might have been hit by police fire, the nation's top law enforcement official said Thursday.

Terrified Somalis fleeing an offensive by Islamist insurgents in their capital described a hellish scene of putrefying corpses, graves hastily dug in gardens and neighborhoods flattened by mortars.

U.S. Marine commandos stormed a pirate-held cargo ship off the Somalia coast Thursday, reclaiming control and taking nine prisoners without firing a shot in the first such boarding raid by the international anti-piracy flotilla, U.S. Navy officials said.

The father of a U.S. soldier serving in Afghanistan tells The Associated Press he tried to warn the Army that troops in his son's unit had killed civilians.

Four prisoners with links to al-Qaida being guarded by American troops escaped from a maximum-security prison in Baghdad and are still at large, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Thursday.

She might have been deported from the United States and stripped of British citizenship, but red-headed former spy Anna Chapman is achieving cult status in her home country.

Amid tight security and applause, Natascha Kampusch presented a book Thursday about her eight-and-a-half-year ordeal at the mercy of a paranoid man who admired Hitler and wanted her to call him "maestro" and "my lord."

Zimbabwe wants normal ties with Western powers critical of its policies but will press ahead with a plan to hand control of foreign companies to local blacks, President Robert Mugabe said.

Two men were arrested after bewildered diners at a McDonald's spotted them wrestling a 5-foot python named Boris in the restaurant parking lot, police in Melbourne, Australia, say.

A suspected American missile strike killed five alleged militants in northwestern Pakistan early Thursday, an intelligence official said, the fourth such attack on suspected insurgent targets there in 24 hours.

A second worker died Thursday from extensive burns received in an explosion at Mexico's third-largest petroleum refinery, the state-run oil company said.

A blind, self-taught activist lawyer who documented forced abortions and other abuses was released from a Chinese prison Thursday and promptly confined in his rural village with no access to communication, a relative said.

The legitimacy of Afghanistan's parliamentary elections is severely threatened by insurgent attacks on candidates and the lack of security provided by the government, an international rights group said Thursday.

Although Colombia delivered some heavy blows in its war against the FARC, the country is facing violence on an entirely new front—from loose criminal networks rushing in to serve the ongoing demand for drug exports.

HBO’s anticipated new series Boardwalk Empire, which is set in Atlantic City during the Prohibition era, is bound to fuel notions of their historical-drama envy.

Only a handful of authors have ever known how to get in-side the mind of a child and then get what they know on paper. Henry James, Mark Twain, William Faulkner, and, more recently, Jean Stafford and Eric Kraft come to mind, and after that one gropes for names. But now they have company. Emma Donoghue’s latest novel, Room, is narrated by a 5-year-old boy so real you could swear he was sitting right beside you.

Affleck’s heist movie The Town is part of a career turnaround so amazing that he looks like the new Clint Eastwood. Seriously. Affleck directed, stars in, and co-wrote The Town, a suspenseful, fiercely paced movie about bank robbers that is also about love, brotherhood, and the desperate need to escape a crooked life.

In a welcome response to a Florida pastor's controversial stunt about burning Muslims' holy book, pundits and pols alike are condemning it, displaying remarkable unity in these fractious times.

The problem isn't that Casey Affleck's movie is gross, but that every part of it recalls smarter, dirtier provocations.

Opponents of Proposition 19, the California ballot initiative that would legalize marijuana, argue that it would create a world where lackadaisical employees would show up to work with bloodshot eyes and slurred speech. But at the heart of the debate is not the morals of pot use, or even the technical issues related to consumption on the job, but the matter of cold, hard cash.

Hillary Clinton has called for the media not to cover a planned Quran burning by a Florida church on Sept. 11 as "an act of patriotism." But can reporters and cameramen turn away from a story they have magnified into one of worldwide significance? And, with bloggers poised to go viral, would it make any difference?

A London-based journalism nonprofit is working with the WikiLeaks Web site and TV and print media in several countries on programs and stories based on what is described as massive cache of classified U.S. military field reports related to the Iraq War.

"Maybe we fell in love too fast," my friend said. "You know, we might have zipped right past the road signs." Several of us were sitting around over the holiday weekend, enjoying a lovely bottle of wine at sunset ... and discussing the condition of our country. Which led us to President Obama. Which led us to our mutually shared disappointment in him.

Sarah Palin has given Delaware Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell a late-game endorsement in her battle against frontrunning Republican Mike Castle. Is Palin's backing enough to turn the race into a repeat of Joe Miller's surprise victory in the Alaska GOP primary?

Even as economists and wonks debate the merits of President Obama's $50 billion infrastructure proposal, the political winds are already blowing it back out to sea. The Washington Post front page Thursday morning screams that Obama's plans are "getting a cool reception."

It’s almost impossible to write about 'Never Let Me Go' without spoilers. This is telling, and too bad, because while the revelation about the nature of the students at Hailsham is dramatic, it’s also not the real story, which is much more about the human condition than any sci-fi plot twist.

Even before any Qurans have been torched, Islamic extremist leaders are fanning the flames of the controversy, taking advantage of a propaganda windfall. Afghan insurgent leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whom the U.S. has labeled as a terrorist, issued a statement this week saying the Quran burning is "part of the American war against Muslims."

Nothing and no one has been able to slow down the growing profile of China in the green energy business, but the U.S. Steelworkers Union thinks it's time to put up a greater fight on behalf of the U.S., which is lagging China in renewable energy manufacturing.

Jimmy Carter had a series of solar panels installed on the White House. Sometime during the next eight years, they came down and never went back up. Environmental activist Bill McKibben wants them put back up, and has scheduled a West Wing meeting to ask nicely.

Even though Rahm Emanuel has more than a month left to announce if he will leave to run for mayor of Chicago, speculation on who would replace him as Obama's chief of staff, should he go, is already swirling. Here is our short list.

The FBI has begun to collect information relating to a plan by a radical Christian pastor in Florida to stage a public Quran burning on the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks this Saturday.

President Obama wants to address America's deficient infrastructure and create jobs by spending $50 billion on rehabilitation. But would it be spent wisely?

The threat to burn Qurans in Florida is a perfect example of the way America’s own Christian Taliban are creating, promoting, and exploiting our national paranoia.

As President Barack Obama's latest war council debates how to strengthen U.S. civilian efforts there and significantly ramp up training of the Afghan police and army.

The Obama administration's point man on civil rights says he'll seek to fight discrimination against gays, an area in which the Justice Department has had only a small role in the past.

New Series Follows Alaska State Troopers They are the first line of defense in the last frontier. Alaska State Troopers, a new series, premieres tonight at 10P e/p on Nat Geo. Learn more at www.natgeotv.com/alaskastatetroopers

The House voted Wednesday to toughen regulations on pilot training, qualifications and work schedules, a response to a fatal crash in upstate New York in February and other accidents involving regional airlines.

The Republican candidate for New Jersey governor regularly spent beyond federal guidelines on business travel while U.S. attorney, records show.

Rev. Terry Jones has decided to call off burning the Quran on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks and planned to meet the imam behind the Islamic community center near ground zero. NBC's Kerry Sanders reports. (Nightly News)

Before Pastor Terry Jones backed off his promise to burn the Quran, his threat reverberated around the world and prompted pressure from the highest levels in Washington. NBC's Andrea Mitchell, Kerry Sanders and Mike Taibbi report. (Nightly News)

Iranian officials announced Thursday that they will free one of the three American hikers who have spent more than a year in a Tehran prison. NBC's Brian Williams reports. (Nightly News)

Texas Gov. Rick Perry has issued a disaster declaration for 40 counties battered by Tropical Storm Hermine on Thursday; and in Colorado, winds continued to fan the flames of wildfires that have so far consumed at least 169 houses. NBC's Brian Williams reports. (Nightly News)

The Saints may be just one NFL team, but they mean the world to New Orleans. NBC's Janet Shamlian reports from the Superdome. (Nightly News)

In light of controversy surrounding the planned Islamic center near Ground Zero in New York and the planned burning of the Muslim holy book this weekend in Florida, one Memphis congregation is reaching out to its neighbors of a different faith. NBC's Ron Mott reports. (Nightly News)

The Pew Center analyzed census data, and found that just under 3 million children were raised by a grandparent in 2008. NBC's Brian Williams reports. (Nightly News)

Education Secretary Arne Duncan announced the 'Blue Ribbon' schools, which raised achievement levels among disadvantage and minority students. (Nightly News)

U.S. fighter jets were nearly launched last month to shoot down a Navy drone that had gone astray near the nation's capitol. NBC's Brian Williams reports. (Nightly News)

Making a Difference: Award-winning photographers who chronicled the horrors of Hurricane Katrina spend a day helping kids to see their city in a new way. NBC's Kate Snow reports. (Nightly News)