A far-reaching immigration bill has survived an early test, as two of its Republican authors sided with Democrats to vote against strengthening border-security provisions.

Spending on prescription medicines in the U.S. fell for the first time in decades last year, slipping as cash-strapped consumers continued to cut back on use of health care services.

Detroit may be broke but it will soon have a first-rate motor pool, featuring 23 new ambulances and a fleet of 100 new police cars. Some city parks also are getting tender loving care. New fruit trees and shrubs have been planted, and mowing crews are beginning to make the rounds to keep the green spaces tidy.

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.

The body of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been buried in an undisclosed location outside the city of Worcester, where it had been held for a week at a funeral home, police said Thursday.

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.

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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.

A fire in an 11-story garment factory in Bangladesh killed eight people, including a ruling-party politician and a top official in the country's powerful clothing manufacturers' trade group, as the death toll from the collapse of another garment factory building passed 900 on Thursday.

Politicians love few things better than a scandal to trip up their opponents, and Republicans hope last year's fatal attack on U.S. diplomats in Libya will do exactly that to Hillary Rodham Clinton and other Democrats.

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.

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

A fire in an 11-story garment factory in Bangladesh killed eight people, including a ruling party politician and a top official in the country's powerful clothing manufacturers' trade group, as the death toll from the collapse of another garment factory building passed 900 on Thursday.