In response to updated information on recent shark sightings in Chatham's East Side Waters, town officials have closed all East Side Facing Beaches to swimming effective immediately. Swimming is prohibited at North Beach, Lighthouse Beach, South Beach, and Andrew Harding's Lane. For further information regarding these sightings please contact...

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Istanbul, Turkey -- In an incident that could seriously undermine the central U.S. aim in Afghanistan, dozens of civilians were killed or injured early Friday in a NATO airstrike, Afghan authorities said.The predawn strike on a pair of hijacked fuel tankers in a remote part of northern Kunduz province...

The head of a western city wracked by communal violence and a bizarre string of needle attacks has been sacked by Chinese authorities hoping to calm uneasy mobs and end protests that left the city on edge for three days.Security was tight Sunday in Urumqi, but the city was calm with no sign of protests.The removal of Urumqi's Communist Party...

Correspondents say Mr Obama will use the speech to regain the initiative on healthcare, after a summer dominated by opponents.Passing a healthcare reform bill is Mr Obama's top policy priority for 2009.The House of Representatives looks set to pass a bill, but US senators have yet to agree on the details of reform.Town hall meetingsAlthough...

WASHINGTON - At least it’s not all bad anymore.The US unemployment rate climbed last month to 9.7 percent - the highest in nearly a generation - but the number of job losses was less than expected and the smallest monthly total in a year.“It’s good to see the rate of job losses slow down,’’ said Nigel Gault, chief US economist at IHS Global...

Michael Jackson is due to be laid to rest tonight in a gold-plated coffin alongside the royalty of Hollywood.More than two months after his sudden, drug-induced death sent millions of his fans into mourning, the King of Pop will be interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park's Great Mausoleum among such stars as as Clark Gable, Jean Harlow...

Gordon Brown has pledged an end to bankers’ bonuses and payouts which reward failure and encourage risk, saying they were ‘an offence’ to the taxpayer.The Prime Minister used the opening of today’s G20 summit of finance ministers to outline his stance on the tentative economic recovery and his plans for the future.The talks are expected to...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will approve hundreds of new housing units in West Bank settlements before slowing settlement construction, two of his aides said Friday in Jerusalem.The moves comes as an apparent snub of the U.S.'s public demand for a total settlement freeze. The White House expressed regret Friday at the Israeli plan,...

nvestigators found evidence of arson at the point of origin for the largest of eight fires burning in the county, which has blackened an area the size of Chicago."Arson investigators from the US Forest Service [and other agencies] ... have concluded that the Station Fire was the result of an arson," Forest Service Commander Rita Wears told...

President Obama has been accused of trying to build a personality cult and indoctrinate America’s schoolchildren with a speech to be beamed into the nation’s classrooms next week.Not a word of the speech has been published but it has been seized on by his opponents because of lesson plans for teachers issued by the White House to encourage...

The two fuel tankers would have looked out of place, stuck by a river bank outside a small Afghan village. Local people came out to take a look and help carry makeshift containers with siphoned fuel inside from the stricken vehicles.That is when the Nato missiles struck, wiping out much of the village of Omar Kheil, and doing critical damage...

President Barack Obama said Friday that his administration will start releasing the names of people who visit the White House, reversing a long-standing policy transcending both Democratic and Republican presidents.The move, which could shed light on who influences White House decision-making, comes following a White House review of its disclosure...

n "All About Steve," Sandra Bullock waves her hands frantically at her side like a bird when she's excited, jabbers to a pet gerbil as if it's a person and is stared at like she's a freak-show attraction.This is not how it should be.For Bullock, "Steve" — a mean-spirited rom-com masquerading as a bless-the-outsiders underdog tale — is a lurch...

The first detailed study of U.S. children killed by swine flu found the outbreak differs from ordinary flu in at least one puzzling respect: It appears to be taking a higher toll on school-age youngsters than on babies and toddlers.At least 40 children have died, accounting for about one in 13 U.S. swine flu deaths, scientists with the Centers...

Germany’s armed forces on Friday said they had called the Nato airstrike on two hijacked fuel tankers in northern Afghanistan that burned more than 50 people to death.A German army spokesman told news agency dpa that a German reconstruction team based in Kunduz, northern Afghanistan had requested the attack, which caused jet fuel in the tankers...

Chinese police and protesters clashed for a second day in Urumqi after a spate of mysterious stabbings with syringes brought simmering ethnic tensions in the capital city close to boiling point.Security forces used tear gas to disperse a crowd of several hundred protesters from China's ethnic Han majority who had gathered outside the Communist...

WASHINGTON — The US unemployment rate jumped to 9.7 percent in August as 216,000 jobs were lost, the government said Friday in a report showing improving labor market conditions.The jobless rate rose three-tenths of a point to the highest since June 1983, but the data nonetheless showed an easing of the massive pace of job losses in an economy...

Thousands of angry protesters marched in China’s only Muslim-majority region today to demand government action over a series of hit-and-run syringe attacks blamed on the ethnic Uighur group.The unrest is certain to unsettle the authorities, coming just weeks after angry Uighurs rampaged through the streets of the city of Urumqi in riots that...

SEOUL, South Korea -- North Korea announced Friday that its process of enriching uranium is nearly complete, giving it a new way to make nuclear bombs as the U.S. and regional powers discuss how to bring the communist country back to disarmament talks.The move raises concerns that North Korea may soon produce uranium-based bombs in addition...

The death toll from the earthquake which struck Indonesia on Wednesday has risen to 45, while dozens more people remain missing among the heavily damaged areas of West Java.Rescue efforts continued overnight after the 7.0 magnitude earthquake rocked southern Indonesia, unleashing mudslides that buried villagers in their homes."At least 45...

HYDERABAD, India — A powerful Indian politician and four other people were killed when their helicopter crashed in the dense jungles of southern India during a pounding rainstorm, Indian media reported Thursday.The helicopter carrying Andhra Pradesh state Chief Minister Y.S.R. Reddy, 60, lost contact with air traffic controllers Wednesday...

NEW YORK -- In a posthumous memoir, Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy writes of fear and remorse surrounding the fateful events on Chappaquiddick Island in 1969, when his car accident left a woman dead, and says he accepted the finding that a lone gunman assassinated his brother President John F. Kennedy.The memoir, "True Compass," is...

The president seeks to retake control of the healthcare debate with his speech to a joint session of Congress next week. But it carries great risk as well.Reporting from Washington - President Obama's announcement that he will take his case for revamping healthcare before a joint session of Congress next week reflects a decision to go "all...

Most Americans are confused about the health care reform proposals before Congress. That’s good news.I had feared that August — featuring some town hall protesters who seemed to believe President Obama was the spawn of the devil — revealed a nation returned to the Dark Ages, willing to believe in witches, evil spells and the perversity of...

IF you watch enough television, you’d think that treating erectile dysfunction was as effortless as popping a pill and then whirling your partner around the living room in a romantic dance. Correcting erectile dysfunction, alas, is not so simple — and it can be rather costly. One Viagra pill, for example, the most common way to treat erection...

Authorities say they haven't ruled out suicide as a possiblity in the death of DJ AM. And there might several good reasons for that.A law-enforcement source has told People that the 36-year-old deejay and club owner, whose real name was Adam Goldstein, had eight undigested OxyContin pills in his stomach when he died, plus one in his mouth...

WASHINGTON - THE WALT Disney Co. announced Monday it has agreed to buy Marvel Entertainment Inc, whose stable of characters includes Spider-Man, Iron Man and the X-Men, in a stock and cash deal valued at four billion dollars.'We believe that adding Marvel to Disney's unique portfolio of brands provides significant opportunities for long-term...