BAGHDAD – A car bomb struck a U.S. military patrol Saturday in the Iraqi capital, killing two American soldiers and injuring two others, and a Marine died in action in a restive central province, the military said. The man expected to become Iraqi’s new prime minister said the coalition government …

WASHINGTON – President Bush’s (search) $2.6 trillion budget plan working its way through Congress is dishonest, irresponsible and violates the core values of average Americans, Sen. John Kerry (search), Bush’s former rival for the presidency, said Thursday. “This budget is like an Enron (search) budget: smoke the numbers, cook the …

Angola’s death toll from an Ebola (search)-like virus has climbed to 126, the Health Ministry and World Health Organization said Thursday, making it the deadliest recorded outbreak of the rare Marburg disease (search). The worst outbreak of the virus on record killed 123 in neighboring Congo (search) between 1998 and …

CHICAGO – McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) on Tuesday said sales at its namesake U.S. restaurants open at least 13 months rose a better-than-expected 4.6 percent in February, but weak results in Europe sent the company’s shares down 3 percent. Same-store sales, a key retail measure, rose 4.6 percent in the United …

NEW YORK – Hackers commandeered a database owned by information industry giant Lexis Nexis (search), gaining access to the personal files of as many as 32,000 people, company officials said Wednesday. Federal and company investigators were looking into the breach at Seisint (search), which was recently acquired by Lexis Nexis …

More than 10 million children per year die before their fifth birthday, and six conditions — many of which are preventable — cause most of those child deaths. That’s according to the World Health Organization. In 2001, the WHO launched a major effort to find out how many of the …

MIAMI – The federal government on Friday reached a $25.5 million settlement with the families of Hungarian Holocaust (search) victims and will acknowledge the U.S. Army’s role in commandeering a trainload of the families’ treasures during World War II (search). Under the terms of the settlement, the money will be …

NEW YORK – Paul Volcker (search) on Tuesday will release the next report in his continuing investigation of the Oil-for-Food program, this one looking at who is to blame for its mismanagement and abuse. It’s a report that could cause more questions as to whether U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan …

RED LAKE, Minn. – A government official says prosecutors are considering a conspiracy charge against the son of an Indian tribal leader in last week’s deadly school shooting, but federal authorities refuse to say what role the teen may have played in the killings. Louis Jourdain, 16, the son of …

TULKAREM, West Bank – Marching in formation and jumping through flaming hoops, Palestinian forces prepared Monday to assume control in Tulkarem (search), the first of five West Bank (search) towns to be handed over by Israel as part of a truce to end four years of bloodshed. The handover, which …