CHICAGO – A dump truck on Tuesday slammed into a tour bus on a busy Chicago interstate, injuring more than a dozen people, many of them senior citizens, officials said. Seventeen people were taken to hospitals, at least one of them in serious condition, Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford …

EL-ARISH, Egypt – Security forces arrested 15 alleged militants Wednesday, including two men wanted in a string of terrorist bombings at Sinai resorts over the past two years, police said. Youssef Mohammed Hamad, 22, and Mohammed Hadi Abu-Qabal, 27, were arrested near Rafah on the border with Gaza, said Brig. …

DANANG, Vietnam – “Don’t worry. Everything’s OK.” Those words, spoken over a radio across hundreds of miles, were among the last that Nguyen Ut Thanh, a fishing boat captain, spoke to his wife. Thanh is believed to have died hours later in Typhoon Chanchu, which killed at least 87 people …

NEW YORK – A murder — maybe two — a philandering husband, the discovery of a mysterious love child, an escape from a psychiatric hospital and a police sniper’s deadly shot ending a confrontation. It all rushed by in an action-packed, two-hour season finale of ABC’s “Desperate Housewives” on Sunday. …

CAIRO, Egypt – The chief of a Darfur rebel faction that refused to sign a peace deal for the war-torn Sudanese region said Friday he wanted to obtain further guarantees from the Sudanese government before committing to the agreement. Abdel Wahid Nur said he wanted commitments from Khartoum in the …

WASHINGTON – Thousands of people joined celebrities and lawmakers at a rally Sunday urging the Bush administration and Congress to help end genocide in Sudan’s Darfur region. “Not on our watch!” the crowd chanted as a parade of speakers lined up for their turn on a stage on the National …

HOUSTON – Travis Hill-Williams has always considered himself an optimist. That attitude was put to the test in August when Hurricane Katrina forced his family to flee New Orleans and make a new life in Houston just as he was starting his senior year in high school. But even one …

TEHRAN, Iran – The government closed one of the country’s top three newspapers Tuesday, detaining its editor and cartoonist for publishing a caricature that caused members of Iran’s Azeri minority to riot in protest. State television reported that the Press Supervisory Body had closed the state-owned newspaper Iran “due to …

MOGADISHU, Somalia – Islamic militias and rival secular fighters signed a formal cease-fire Sunday under pressure from clan leaders — a deal intended to end eight days of fighting that has killed at least 142 people. The chairman of the radical Islamic Court Union militias and a senior commander for …

LOS ANGELES – Johnny Depp has the write stuff when it comes to signing autographs while Cameron Diaz is the worst, according to a new list from Autograph Collector magazine. Depp, followed by George Clooney, topped the magazine’s 14th annual survey of Hollywood’s best and worst signers. The “Pirates of …