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WASHINGTON – Don’t count on a vaccine to protect against bird flu during the first six months of a pandemic. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said Monday it would take at least that long to produce a vaccine because the virus is changing and there’s no way to …

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Researchers at West Virginia University’s Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute have learned that when a gene regulating long-term memory is knocked out of operation in mice, they can retain information for much longer than normal. The long-term memory gene may have implications for memory loss and progressive conditions …

WASHINGTON – The United States joined European nations Friday in imposing sanctions on Belarus in retaliation for a crackdown on political protesters after an election that the White House said was fraudulent. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Washington would act in unison with the European Union in applying …

CHICAGO – Participants in an international Internet chat room transmitted live visuals of child molestation and traded thousands of pictures of child pornography, federal authorities said Wednesday in announcing charges against 27 people. U.S. and international authorities have charged 27 people who took part in the Kiddypics & Kiddyvids chat …

ABUJA, Nigeria – Liberian warlord Charles Taylor has disappeared from his haven in Nigeria, just as he was to have been handed over to stand trial on war crimes charges, Nigerian officials said Tuesday. Taylor vanished Monday night from his villa in the southern town of Calabar, the government said. …

NEW YORK – Children’s television is studded with violence, much of it darker and more realistic than when Road Runner dropped an anvil on Wile E. Coyote‘s head, a watchdog group reported on Thursday. The Parents Television Council analyzed 444 hours of kids’ daytime programs last summer and detailed 2,794 …

NEW YORK – A key witness overheard a graduate student from Boston arguing with a suspect in her brutal murder — a bouncer at a SoHo bar — before she disappeared and later turned up dead in Brooklyn, a law enforcement official said on Tuesday. Imette St. Guillen, 24, was …

DENVER – A high school social studies teacher who was disciplined for comparing speeches by President Bush and Adolf Hitler stands by his lecture but wishes “he’d picked a different dictator,” his lawyer said. Teacher Jay Bennish also promised school district administrators that he would make sure future classroom talks …

INNISFAIL, Australia – After their town was torn apart by a terrifying cyclone — amazingly without loss of life — the people of Innisfail responded with a most Australian of gatherings: a barbie. Butchers and restaurant owners in the town offered up their wares to survivors on Tuesday rather than …

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Senate has approved a bill that would force the removal of a convicted killer’s remains from Arlington National Cemetery. The measure involving the cremated remains of Hagerstown resident Russell Wagner is part of a veterans’ benefits bill the Senate passed last week. A companion House bill …