NEW YORK – Memo to "American Idol" producers: In 2010, Lady Gaga beats Frank Sinatra. `Ol Blue Eyes was another generation's idol, certainly bigger than Gaga in his day. But last Tuesday's "American Idol" devoted to his songs was seen by 17.5 million viewers, the least-watched regularly scheduled...

Some in the Vatican had hoped Benedict XVI could use his trip to Portugal to begin to move past the constant questions about pedophile priests and see-no-evil bishops. But even before he arrived, Benedict may have offered the most significant comment to date, an acknowledgment that the Catholic...

CHICAGO – Plane tickets, check. Passport, check. Medical evacuation insurance? It's probably not something most people think about when packing for a vacation. But Louise Robbins says she'd probably be bankrupt without it. The University of Wisconsin library educator and her husband, Robby, were in...

TOLEDO, Ohio – Joe the Plumber is plunging into party politics. Samuel "Joe" Wurzelbacher, who was hailed by Republican John McCain's presidential campaign in 2008, won one of nearly 400 seats on the local Republican Party committee in Ohio's Lucas County. But don't call him Joe the Politician just...

MASTIC BEACH, N.Y. – It was a 90-minute nightmare. Alfred and Geri Esposito of Mastic Beach were told Saturday morning that their son Freddy and another passenger had been killed in a collision with a tractor-trailer on a Pennsylvania highway. It turns out Freddy wasn't dead. He was asleep on a...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US prison population was little changed in 2009 with a rate of one out of 100 Americans who are old enough to be incarcerated, a study showed Wednesday. Combining state and federal figures, the total prison population rose by 1,099 inmates to 2.3 million, out of 230 million...

TOKYO – Japan appeared largely relieved Thursday that much-anticipated testimony by Toyota's chief executive before U.S. lawmakers was finally over, though analysts said the company's recall woes are no closer to being solved. Toyota Motor Corp. President Akio Toyoda's appearance before the House...

LOS ANGELES – Spirit has always been the unluckier of NASA's twin Mars rovers. Just weeks after landing in a Martian crater in 2004, it went haywire and transmitted gibberish to Earth. Engineers eventually nursed it back to health. As if the near-death experience wasn't enough, Spirit was upstaged...

KARACHI, Pakistan – A suicide bomber struck a procession marking a key Shiite Muslim holy day in Pakistan's biggest city Monday, killing 30 people in an attack blamed on extremists trying to hamper the country's fight against militancy by sparking a sectarian war. Outraged Shiites responded to one...

LOS ANGELES – Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher scarcely remember how to celebrate Christmas without a high-profile game smack in the middle of their holiday season. That's life with the Los Angeles Lakers — and that goes for the Lakers' families, too. "With the amount of gifts my kids receive, they...