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NEW YORK – Americans spent $1.23 billion on video games, hardware and accessories in April, up 47 percent from a year earlier, even as the price of more essential items like food and gasoline soared. Nintendo Co. again took the crown in hardware sales, with its Wii console selling more …

MARRERO, La. – A 19-year-old man was booked in the death of a fetus after he accidentally shot a pregnant woman and killed her unborn baby, authorities said. Wilbert L. Luke Jr. shot Shawntell Walker, 17, in the abdomen Sunday while he was showing her a handgun, Jefferson Parish sheriff’s …

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – It’s probably as revolutionary and groundbreaking as Mozart gets these days. A German-based quartet staged Saudi Arabia’s first-ever performance of European classical music in a public venue before a mixed gender audience. The concert, held at a government-run cultural center, broke many taboos in a country …

French first lady Carla Bruni’s new song has left Colombia’s leaders furious. In one of the songs on her new album to be released in July, the ex-model and wife of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, mentions “Colombian white.” “You are my drug. More deadly than Afghan heroin. More dangerous than …

WASHINGTON – Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad said Saturday he is donating $10,500 to charity and refinancing his loan on an apartment building after reviewing documents showing he received special treatment from Countrywide Financial Corp. Conrad said it appears that Countrywide waived 1 point on his mortgage for a …

AUSTIN, Texas – Investigators said Monday that someone angry with the government set the Texas Governor’s Mansion on fire this month, and they offered a $50,000 reward for information leading to his arrest. State Fire Marshal Paul Maldonado had said last week that investigators did not believe the blaze was …

PHILADELPHIA – An Episcopal bishop accused of concealing his brother’s sexual abuse of a 14-year-old decades ago once told the girl’s mother he did not think it was his place to inform her family, her mother testified Monday at a church trial. The testimony came as the trial opened for …

NEW YORK – Forsan Hussein was born and raised in a tight Arab neighborhood in Israel. He spoke only Arabic and had only Arab friends. Though he lived in a Jewish state, he never met a Jew until he was 10 years old, and he couldn’t speak the other boy’s …

Sir Ben Kingsley says Mary-Kate Olsen wore the pants when it came to their on-screen kiss in “The Wackness.” “She was completely in charge,” the actor, 64, told People magazine in a Thursday story on their enthusiastic make-out scene in a telephone booth. In “The Wackness,” Olsen, 22, plays a …

WASHINGTON – The Senate passed a $162 billion war spending plan Thursday, sending to President Bush legislation that will pay for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan until the next president takes office. The package, approved 92-6, includes a doubling of GI Bill college benefits for troops and veterans. It also …