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ROCKVILLE, Md. – Jurors who spent the past four weeks listening to John Allen Muhammad question witnesses and argue that he was framed for the Washington-area sniper attacks began their own deliberations Tuesday morning. Muhammad, acting as his own attorney at his second trial in the deadly shootings, told the …

DURHAM, N.C. – A stripper who performed at a Duke University lacrosse team party where another dancer said she was raped by three team members faces probation violation charges. A hearing for Kim Roberts scheduled for Tuesday in Durham County Superior Court was postponed until July 24. She made an …

ARUSHA, Tanzania – Bono said Saturday that Africa must keep working to stop malaria, which kills more than 1 million people a year — many of them young children on the continent. “In the 21st century, we have Africans using modern technology to find its own solutions to deadly malaria,” …

GENEVA – The United States is sending a stockpile of the antiviral drug Tamiflu to Asia as a first defense against a possible flu pandemic, the U.S. health chief said Monday. Mike Leavitt, U.S. secretary of health and human services, said Washington has shipped treatment courses of Tamiflu to a …

BRUSSELS, Belgium – First, the gunman shot and wounded a woman of Turkish descent. Then he turned his rifle on a black woman from Mali and the 2-year-old white girl in her care, killing both. The assailant, police say, was a teenager who shot anyone whose skin color he didn’t …

JERUSALEM – After three weeks of negotiations, Israel’s leader put together a coalition government Monday that backs his plan to pull out of parts of the West Bank and draw Israel’s final borders by 2010. Interim Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced key Cabinet appointments, naming Tzipi Livni, a pragmatic jurist …

WASHINGTON – President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair are going to work with their new partners in Iraq to determine when the Iraqis can sustain themselves and coalition forces can drawdown, the president said in a press conference with Blair on Thursday night. “I have said that our commanders …

LAHORE, Pakistan – At least seven people have died and thousands of others have fallen sick after drinking contaminated water in an industrial city in eastern Pakistan, officials said Tuesday. An outbreak of gastroenteritis began May 14 in Faisalabad, a city famous for its textile mills. The last two fatalities …

BERLIN – Germany’s Social Democrats on Sunday elected a new leader, Kurt Beck, handing him the challenge of pulling the center-left party out of the shadow of conservative Chancellor Angela Merkel. A party convention endorsed the 57-year-old state governor, who stood unopposed, by a margin of 444-14. He replaced Matthias …

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – A powerful earthquake hit deep under the South Pacific late Tuesday north of New Zealand, and it rocked a wide area of the country, but no damage or injuries were reported. The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center issued a bulletin saying the magnitude 7.4 quake had not …