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RALEIGH, N.C. – The attorney general’s office in North Carolina is petitioning the state Supreme Court to block the release of two convicted killers who had been serving life sentences. Lawyers filed their petition Friday, a day after the state appeals court rejected a request to keep Alford Jones and …

BOSTON – Quick-thinking school nurses and paramedics are being credited with saving the life of a 7-year-old boy who went into cardiac arrest after choking on food during a school Christmas party. Authorities say the second-grader at the Josiah Quincy School in the city’s Chinatown neighborhood collapsed on the floor …

CINCINNATI – A bar owner took an 11-year-old girl’s skateboard at gunpoint and was charged with armed robbery, police said. Jack Connerton, 50, was angry over children cutting through his parking lot on skateboards, according to authorities. He was arrested on the felony count Saturday after he allegedly pointed a …

NUKU’ALOFA, Tonga – Eighty-five passengers were missing and feared dead Saturday after their ferry flipped and sank off Tonga, with only two bodies recovered more than two days after the disaster. Police Chief Inspector Sokopeti To’ia told The Associated Press on Saturday the latest count of those aboard the ill-fated …

Norwegian scientists’ large, cross-sectional study of more than 50,000 people has found that caffeine seems to both cause and prevent hurting heads. In a study published in the Journal of Headache Pain, scientists at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim, Norway, concluded that people who consume …

LEXINGTON, Georgia – Authorities are looking for the last few wild dogs they believe were part of a pack that killed an elderly couple in northeast Georgia. Preliminary autopsy results show 77-year-old Lothar Karl Schweder and his 65-year-old wife, Sherry, died of injuries related to multiple animal bites. Authorities rounded …

The giant panda could be extinct in two to three generations Chinese state media reported Monday, according to AFP. The report said that rapid economic development is hurting the panda’s way of life, as their habitat is being split into smaller patches, AFP reported. If the panda cannot mate with …

Swine flu is keeping kids with asthma home from camp this summer. The American Lung Association has advised its affiliated camps to close, including one in Colorado that was scheduled to begin next week. Champ Camp in Ward was a traditional sleep-away weeklong camp for boys and girls with asthma …

SEOUL, South Korea – South Korea’s coast guard said Monday it is drawing up guidelines on how to inspect North Korean ships suspected of carrying banned items — a move expected to enrage Pyongyang, which has warned it would consider such inspections a declaration of war. The move came as …

TEHRAN, Iran – The wife of Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi said Thursday that her brother is among the hundreds arrested in Iran’s postelection crackdown, and she warned authorities not to publish any “forced confessions” from him or other detainees. More than 500 people remain imprisoned after the heavy …