The U.S. wants to keep nine bases in Afghanistan after American combat troops withdraw in 2014 and the Afghan government will let them as long as it gets "security and economic guarantees," President Hamid Karzai said Thursday in his first public offer in talks about the future relationship between the two uneasy allies.

Syrian warplanes pounded rebel targets in two northern provinces on Thursday as President Bashar Assad's troops pushed on with an offensive to reclaim more territory from the opposition.

Both sides are squaring off over a sweeping immigration bill on the opening day of a Senate committee hearing.

A fire fed by huge piles of acrylic products used to make sweaters killed eight people at a Bangladesh garment factory, barely two weeks after a collapse at another garment factory building where the death toll was approaching 1,000 on Thursday.

Gunmen attacked an election rally in Pakistan's southern Punjab province on Thursday and abducted the son of a former prime minister, intensifying what has already been a violent run-up to Saturday's nationwide elections.

Boston's police commissioner told lawmakers conducting the first congressional hearing on the Marathon bombings that government should tighten security around celebratory public events and consider using more undercover officers, special police units and technology, including surveillance cameras _ but only in ways that don't run afoul of civil liberties.

When Michael Gore stands, it's a triumph of science and engineering. Eleven years ago, Gore was paralyzed from the waist down in a workplace accident, yet he rises from his wheelchair to his full 6-foot-2-inches and walks across the room with help from a lightweight wearable robot.

Authorities say a plastic surgeon in Miami attacked his girlfriend for several hours over a Facebook posting, forcing her head into a toilet and stuffing a rag in the woman's mouth at one point.

The father of a child killed in December's shootings at Newtown's Sandy Hook Elementary School has been offered a 30-day sentence to resolve criminal charges he has faced since 2011.

A Cleveland man was arraigned Thursday on charges of rape and kidnapping after three women missing for about a decade and one of their young daughters were found alive at his home earlier in the week.

It was an attitude problem, Air Force commanders insisted, not a matter of competence. And besides, they contended, security was never at risk in spite of what one commander called "rot" in the crew force.

A former top diplomat in Libya on Wednesday delivered a riveting minute-by-minute account of the chaotic events during the deadly assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi last September, with a 2 a.m. call from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and confusion about the fate of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.

A small helicopter lost power and came crashing down on a busy downtown Honolulu street Wednesday afternoon, but no one was seriously injured, authorities said.

The jury has rendered its verdict _ Jodi Arias is guilty of first-degree murder _ but the trial is far from finished.

A Cleveland man was arraigned Thursday on charges of rape and kidnapping after three women missing for about a decade were found alive at his home earlier in the week.

Detroit has a long history of manufacturing _ cars, steel, even popcorn.

Three women found alive after a decade in captivity endured lonely, dark lives inside a dingy home where they were raped and allowed outside only a handful of times in disguises while walking to a garage steps away, investigators say.

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:

Syrian warplanes pounded rebel targets in two northern provinces on Thursday as President Bashar Assad's troops pushed on with an offensive to reclaim more territory from the opposition.

A bill to enact dramatic changes to the nation's immigration system and put some 11 million immigrants here illegally on a path to citizenship is facing its first congressional test.