PORT ANGELES, Wash., Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Police in Washington state surrounded an apartment building after a 911 call about a man brandishing a rifle, which turned out to be a realistic fake.
PITTSBURGH, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- The Christmas and New Year holidays are the hardest time to be single, harder even than Valentine's Day, a poll of a U.S. Catholic online community says.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Christmas trees heading north to Alaska may be carrying an extra "ornament" -- frogs -- and fish and game officials say they bring a threat of disease.
SYDNEY, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Australian customs and border-protection authorities intercepted a ship carrying 55 asylum seekers off the country's northwest coast Friday, officials said.
MILWAUKEE, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- A call to re-establish the natural barrier between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River to restrain non-native species is gaining ground, officials say.
MINSK, Belarus, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- The question of independence for two former Georgian republics will not be considered by the Belarusian Parliament before the spring of 2010, officials said.
ROANOKE, Va., Dec. 18 (UPI) -- A federal jury in Virginia Friday convicted neo-Nazi William A. White of threatening and trying to intimidate litigants in a housing discrimination lawsuit.
RIMROCK, Ariz., Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Police in Arizona said they arrested a man who allegedly cut his girlfriend's finger with a sword while holding her and his mother hostage.
NASHUA, N.H., Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Police in New Hampshire said they arrested a former auto dealership employee for allegedly tampering with the business' computer to alter prices.
NEW YORK, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- ABC says its U.S. evening news broadcast will be called "ABC World News with Diane Sawyer," starting Monday.
DETROIT, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Three Detroit-area men have pleaded guilty in a $4.2 million Medicare fraud scheme, federal prosecutors said Friday.
LONDON, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Heavy snows produced travel chaos in Britain Friday, cutting power, forcing flight cancellations and stranding motorists, officials said.
LONDON, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- The Rembrandt painting sold last week for $33.2 million was bought by a representative for Las Vegas casino owner Stephen A. Wynn, sources say.
SPRING VALLEY, Wis., Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Experts said animal tracks discovered in Wisconsin could belong to a cougar seen wandering recently in Minnesota.
DES MOINES, Iowa, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Police in Iowa said they are on the lookout for a man with giant screwdrivers believed to be behind a number of vending machine thefts.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- A House ethics panel Friday dropped its probe of Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., and two other members of the defense spending panel Murtha leads, aides said.
PITTSBURGH, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Pittsburgh men's basketball Coach Jamie Dixon says it would be a mistake for the school to leave the Big East Conference for the Big Ten.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- World leaders took a "meaningful and unprecedented" step in Denmark Friday by striking a voluntary agreement to fight global warming, U.S. President Obama said.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark, Dec. 18 (UPI) -- Environmentalists lashed out Friday at the agreement on climate change announced at the international conference on global warming in Copenhagen.
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