Opening statements and testimony were presented Friday in the trial of Nicholas Brooks, a songwriter's son who is charged with the 2010 murder of his swimsuit designer girlfriend in a New York City hotel room.

In “Mankind: The Story of Us All,” Pamela D. Toler introduces us to the connections, over time, that led to our domination of the planet. It’s a vast task that she does well

A building supplier phoned Pollard Lumber Co. about providing wood for a large government construction project in Georgia, but the deal broke down over a single question about how the family-owned sawmill has committed itself to environmentally friendly practices.

A military appeals court has rejected claims of anti-gay bias in upholding the 2009 conviction of a lieutenant colonel court-martialed at the former McChord Air Force Base in Washington state.

Like a lot of kids, the two brothers from northern Illinois spent hours marveling at the weird and the wonderful in the Guinness Book of World Records - and wondering what they could do to get in it.

Our family is longing for the safe return of our cherished son and beloved brother Austin, who was taken captive while working as a journalist in Syria. So many things have happened in the more than 18 weeks he has been missing. We missed him terribly at the family gathering for the feast of Thanksgiving. We are a close-knit family, sharing so many memories and traditions. Now, as we prepare for the joyful celebration of Christmas, we desperately want our family to be whole. Our hearts are heavy to think his chair may once again be empty at our family table; we dread missing his great storytelling and contagious laugh. . . .

People like Edward Snowden - nearly 500,000 employees of private firms with access to the government's most sensitive secrets - play a crucial role: They help monitor threats to national security.

Jerry Sandusky will head back to the Centre County courtroom where he was convicted of molesting young boys as his attorneys take their first set of appeals to the judge who oversaw the trial.

A small-town Kentucky police department mourning the ambush slaying of one of its officers has received threats that more officers will be targeted. The police chief says his department will not bow to such threats, and the FBI and state police are investigating.

A subsidiary of Alaska’s Native-owned NANA Development Corp. is under investigation by members of Congress and federal regulators after the deaths of three workers in an offshore oil platform explosion in November in the Gulf of Mexico.