China says 15 dead, 114 trapped in mine explosion
BEIJING (AP) -- A gas explosion tore through a coal mine in northern China on Saturday, killing 15 people and trapping another 114 nearly a third of a mile under ground, central government authorities said....

Campaigner against hate crimes killed in Moscow
MOSCOW (AP) -- Russian prosecutors say an anti-hate crimes campaigner has been shot and killed in Moscow....

Researcher: Faint writing seen on Shroud of Turin
ROME (AP) -- A Vatican researcher has rekindled the age-old debate over the Shroud of Turin, saying that faint writing on the linen proves it was the burial cloth of Jesus. Experts say the historian may be reading too much into the markings, and they stand by carbon-dating that points to the shroud being a medieval forgery....

Museum: Galileo's fingers, tooth are found
ROME (AP) -- Two fingers and a tooth removed from Galileo Galilei's corpse in a Florentine basilica in the 18th century and given up for lost have been found again and will soon be put on display, an Italian museum director said Friday....

Fight is on between pro-fish camp, mine defenders
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- The fight is on between backers of an Alaska mine being developed near the world's most productive wild salmon streams and 13 Seattle restaurants....

Argentina forces dirty war orphans to provide DNA
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) -- Valuing truth over the right to privacy, Argentina's Congress has authorized the forced extraction of DNA from people who may have been born to political prisoners slain a quarter-century ago - even when they don't want to know their birth parents....

Kidnapped Britons say Somali pirates may kill them
LONDON (AP) -- A retired British couple snatched from their yacht by Somali pirates said in an interview broadcast Friday they fear they could be killed within a week or handed to a terrorist group if a ransom demand is not paid....

Resort island reels after deadly attack by gunman
SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) -- After going on a shooting rampage that left a trail of victims on the Pacific resort island of Saipan, the gunman drove to a scenic, rocky cliff where untold numbers of Japanese men, women and children plunged to their deaths to avoid capture during World War II, according to police and witness accounts....