CHICAGO – Baggage fees are fast becoming an unavoidable part of U.S. flying — three of the largest carriers now charge $15 for a first checked bag. No. 2 United Airlines and No. 7 US Airways announced their new fees on Thursday, three weeks after No. 1 American Airlines set …

BOGOTA, Colombia – A senior Colombian official says Colombia and Ecuador are restoring diplomatic relations at the level of charges d’affaires. The move follows mediation efforts by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Ecuador had broken ties in anger after a cross-border Colombian military raid on March 1 in which a …

DETROIT – Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick on Friday asked the Michigan Supreme Court to rule on whether documents from a secret settlement of a whistle-blowers’ lawsuit should be made public. The documents include embarrassing and sexually explicit text messages between Kilpatrick and his former top aide. The city filed its …

WASHINGTON – Senior citizens are knocking on senators’ doors. Lobbyists for the homebuilding and energy industries are burning up their telephone lines. Interest groups ranging from vulnerable people who tug at lawmakers’ heartstrings to powerful contributors to their political campaigns have joined the push for $40 billion in add-ons to …

SEATTLE – Starbucks Corp. and AT&T Inc. will start offering a mix of free and paid wireless Internet service in most of the international coffee retailer’s U.S. shops, beginning this spring. The move announced Monday ends a six-year partnership T-Mobile, which did not include free Wi-Fi and charged higher fees …

Facebook’s long, slow, and, for some, sad decline into oblivion has begun. A recent report from The New York Times stated that the company is going to try to make it easier for members to get off the service. This is a clear indication that the social network’s days in …

SAN FRANCISCO – If Tony the twice-widowed Siberian tiger was still grieving, he did a fine job of disguising it while licking his flame-colored paws for the few visitors who braved rain and a redolence of death to welcome him back. The big cat exhibit at the San Francisco Zoo …

MUNICH, Germany – Survival of the NATO alliance, a cornerstone of American security policy for six decades, is at stake in the debate over how the United States and Europe should share the burden of fighting Islamic extremism in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday. “We must not — …

Bob McNichol has been fighting to get his sight back, tooth and … eye? The 57-year-old Irishman was blinded two years ago after an aluminum explosion at a recycling plant, AFP reported Thursday. His sight has been miraculously restored after doctors inserted his son’s tooth in his eye. “I thought …

BEIJING – China’s product safety agency cast doubt Saturday on claims that a Chinese dumpling maker sickened consumers in Japan, saying tests on its ingredients found none of the insecticide cited by Japanese authorities. Japanese authorities say dumplings made by the Chinese company, Tianyang Food Processing Ltd., were contaminated with …