Scientists are working on a vaccine against drug-resistant staph bacteria such as MRSA. MRSA is methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. It resists treatment with many antibiotics. MRSA infections are rising worldwide. It often infects the skin but can also infect the blood, lungs, urinary tract, and other parts of the body. Universityof …

FORT WORTH, Texas – A former hospital nurse pleaded no contest Tuesday to killing 10 patients nearly six years ago by injecting them with a drug used to temporarily halt breathing. Vickie Dawn Jackson, 40, will be sentenced to life in prison, the same sentence she faced if she had …

ROME – Italian authorities have cracked an Islamic terror cell that raised at least $2 million to finance attacks in Algeria, including two that killed 18 people in 2005, officials said Monday. Three members were in custody and three others were being sought. The Milan cell has ties with the …

In most of the world, 29 percent to 62 percent of women have suffered physical or sexual violence at the hands of an intimate partner. More often than not, the violence is severe. For half of these women, the abuse continues. The appalling numbers come from a remarkable study led …

VATICAN CITY – Pope Benedict XVI delivered a strong defense of Christian marriage on Sunday, urging couples to resist modern cultural currents inspired only by a search for happiness and pleasure. “May Christian couples build a family that is open to life and capable of handling united the many, complex …

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – Freddy Fender, the “Bebop Kid” of the Texas-Mexico border who later turned his twangy tenor into the smash country ballad “Before the Next Teardrop Falls,” died Saturday. He was 69. Fender, who was diagnosed with lung cancer in early 2006, died at noon at his Corpus …

WASHINGTON – Revisiting one of physics’ most embarrassing cases of scientific misconduct, researchers from Russia and the United States announced Monday that they have created a new super-heavy element, atomic number 118. Scientists said they smashed together calcium with the man-made element californium to make an atom with 118 protons …

Welcome to the party! The US Census Bureau reports that America’s population will pass the 300 million mark next week. Time to celebrate, right? Not according to everyone. When we hit the 200 million mark, it was 1967 and President Lyndon Johnson commemorated the feat with a laudatory speech. It …

JERUSALEM – A proposal to renovate the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp is drawing criticism from Holocaust survivors in Israel, who fear modernization will disturb the camp’s original state and the somber memorial to those who suffered and died there. The renovations, proposed last month by Piotr Cywinski, 34, the new …

DENVER – A subdivision has withdrawn its threat of $25 daily fines against a homeowner who put a Christmas wreath shaped like a peace sign on the front of her home. Homeowner Lisa Jensen told The Associated Press on Monday that the board of directors of the Loma Linda Homeowners …