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GRAPEVINE, Texas – Amid deafening screams, several hundred people welcomed Olympic gold medalist Nastia Liukin back home to Texas on Thursday. The flag-waving crowd at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport included gymnasts she trains with, pint-sized fans and fellow gold medalist and friend Carly Patterson, who trained at the same gym. …

BAQOUBA, Iraq – When the first few women in Iraq’s Diyala Province began blowing themselves up late last year, I registered a shift in the insurgents’ tactics. When the number of female homicide bombers was still in single digits, I began planning a trip to the province to find some …

NEEDLES, Calif. – A small, homebuilt plane crashed on a California interstate Tuesday, hitting a car and killing one person in the plane, authorities said. It was not immediately known whether the car’s occupants were injured. Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said the Titan Tornado tried to land Tuesday …

This is a rush transcript from “On the Record ,” April 3, 2008. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated. GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST: First, Senator John McCain. Your ride-along interview with him on the “Straight Talk Express” — it’s starting. Does Senator McCain …

TOKYO – A court sentenced a Japanese woman Monday to 15 years in prison for beating her husband to death with a wine bottle, chopping up his body with a saw and dumping his body parts around Tokyo, a court official said. The Tokyo District Court handed down the verdict …

LOS ANGELES – A former UCLA Medical Center employee was indicted on charges that she accessed the records of dozens of high-profile patients and selling the information to a media outlet, prosecutors said Tuesday. The indictment follows revelations of privacy breaches involving at least 61 patients at the University of …

SAO PAULO, Brazil – Hopes for finding a priest who disappeared after soaring into the air with about a thousand colorful balloons are growing slimmer, rescue officials said Wednesday. Roman Catholic Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli has been missing since Sunday, when he lifted off from the port city of …

VIENNA, Austria – A sharp rise in food prices has developed into a global crisis, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Friday. Ban said the U.N and all members of the international community are very concerned, and immediate action is needed. He spoke to reporters at U.N. offices in Austria, where …

LONDON – Britain’s former deputy prime minister John Prescott, who was known for his tough guy image, said Sunday that he has secretly struggled with bulimia for decades. Prescott, 69, wrote in The Sunday Times that he used to gorge on vast amounts of food and then force himself to …

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia – An ex-diplomat convicted of having sex with teenage girls in the Congo and Brazil and taping the encounters is asking a judge for leniency, claiming that cultural differences in those countries make sex with girls more acceptable. Gons G. Nachman, 42, pleaded guilty in April to possessing …