CHICAGO – McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) on Thursday said sales at its hamburger restaurants open at least 13 months rose 4 percent in November, helped by breakfast sales and extended hours in the United States. Four Wall Street analysts had been expecting a rise of between 3.4 percent and 3.7 percent, …

Things most guys can have around the house: baseballs, basketballs, footballs, softballs. Things guys most definitely shouldn’t have around the house: cannonballs. A collector in McKinney, Texas, kept an antique cannonball that he’d bought from the trunk of a man’s car at a gun show in his apartment as a …

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Angry Shiites marched Wednesday and set fire to the offices of a secular politician after a Sunni Arab guest criticized Iraq’s Shiite religious leaders during an Al-Jazeera talk show. The station’s Baghdad correspondent also resigned in protest of the remarks by Fadel al-Rubaei, a Sunni politician living …

WASHINGTON – Jack Anderson, the Pulitzer Prize-winning muckraking columnist who struck fear into the hearts of corrupt or secretive politicians, inspiring Nixon operatives to plot his murder, died Saturday. He was 83. Anderson died at his home in Bethesda, Md., of complications from Parkinson’s disease, said one of his daughters, …

LONDON – A lawyer for Saddam Hussein said the deposed Iraqi leader believes someone tipped off U.S. forces to his whereabouts two years ago and that he was gassed while hiding in the spider hole, a newspaper reported Monday. The Sun also quoted former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark as …

WASHINGTON – Loyalty and continuity have marked the Bush White House since early on. After two wars, devastating strikes by terrorists and hurricanes, a bruising re-election and countless legislative battles, President Bush‘s team is continuing the trend — defying history and shakeup rumors to remain almost entirely intact five years …

LAWRENCE, Mass. – A 64-year-old man was tied to a bed with a telephone cord, beaten and left to die by a couple who then plundered his bank account, authorities said. The man was saved when his landlord found him 36 hours later. Casey Berube, 23, was arrested in Nashua, …

FORT HOOD, Texas – An Army soldier has been cleared of killing an unarmed Iraqi he said he shot to save a fellow soldier. Staff Sgt. Shane Werst (search), 32, was acquitted Thursday by a jury of four soldiers and two officers. He had faced a maximum of life in …

BEND, Ore. – Public displays of affection are against the rules at Sky View Middle School (search) in Bend, and 14-year-old Cazz Altomare found that out the hard way. She got detention earlier this year after hugging her boyfriend in the hallway as he headed to lunch and she went …

UNITED NATIONS – Russia (search) is prepared to reduce its strategic nuclear arsenal below 1,500 warheads, less than the level agreed to with the United States (search), but Moscow is concerned about nuclear threats on its border, two senior Russian officials said Monday. Anatoly Antonov (search), director of the Foreign …