NEW YORK, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- New York City police say they arrested two suspects, both accused of impersonating police officers, in a violent Christmas Eve home-invasion robbery in Queens.
COVINA, Calif., Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Police in California say that the man who killed his ex-wife, her parents and five others also planned to gun down his mother and his ex-wife's lawyer.
LAS VEGAS, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- A Nevada safety board has cleared a construction company of wrongdoing in a spectacular fire at the Monte Carlo casino in Las Vegas.
UNITED NATIONS, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Southern Africa, Central America and South America have the highest homicide rates while most of Europe has the lowest, a U.N. agency reported Tuesday.
CHICAGO, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris was tapped by embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to fill President-elect Barack Obama's open Senate seat.
DALLAS, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- A Texas man who thought a gunman demanding his wallet was just someone playing a joke has been hospitalized after being shot, authorities said.
OGDEN, Utah, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Three teenagers and two young women have been charged with beating a 15-year-old girl in a video posted on YouTube, police in Utah said Tuesday.
SALT LAKE CITY, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- A teenager snowmobiling in Uinta National Forest was caught by an avalanche, becoming the fourth person to die in Utah in a snowslide in a month, officials say.
KINGSTON, Tenn., Dec. 30 (UPI) -- A river near the site of a Tennessee power plant dike break is registering arsenic levels above amounts permitted in drinking water, officials say.
BAKU, Azerbaijan, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Azerbaijani broadcasting licenses for Radio Liberty, Voice of America and the BBC will not be renewed, a government official said Tuesday.
SAN ANTONIO, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- A teacher at a Roman Catholic school in San Antonio fired after she married a divorced man has filed a federal discrimination complaint.
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y., Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Former New York Police Department Commissioner Bernard Kerik, a former nominee for U.S. homeland security secretary, pleaded not guilty to federal tax charges.
SACRAMENTO, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Many students increasingly are illiterate when it comes to cursive writing and choose instead to print their words, say U.S. teachers.
CRAWFORD, Texas, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- U.S. President George Bush and his Palestinian counterpart agreed Hamas must respect a cease-fire for it to be lasting, a White House spokesman said Tuesday.
RIVERHEAD, N.Y., Dec. 30 (UPI) -- A New York man who was the subject of an anonymous tip to a child abuse hot line was able to get a list of 200 phone numbers of tipsters, a state report said.
TAMPA, Fla., Dec. 30 (UPI) -- The declining use of Braille in the United States puts visually impaired people at an economic disadvantage, says the National Federation of the Blind.
LONDON, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- The bishops of the Church of England have agreed to admit women to their ranks in a compromise that also aims to accommodate traditionalists.
PITTSBURGH, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- The sister of an 86-year-old Pittsburgh woman has been charged with kidnapping her sibling in a bid to force her from her squalid apartment, police say.
PHOENIX, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Police across the United States say they are encouraged about the prospects for new security technology under Barack Obama's administration.
SHOSHONE, Idaho, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- A judge ordered an Idaho man held Tuesday pending a bail review on charges stemming from the Christmas Day freezing death of his young daughter.
HARARE, Zimbabwe, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- The cholera outbreak in Zimbabwe has claimed 1,608 victims as of Tuesday, and has infected more than 30,000 people, the United Nations said.
MOSCOW, Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed amendments to the Russian constitution Tuesday that extend the terms of president and parliament.
WILMINGTON, Del., Dec. 30 (UPI) -- Legal analysts say the starvation death of a parrot is raising questions about the rights of prisoners in the United States to communicate with the outside.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla., Dec. 30 (UPI) -- FBI investigators are probing whether U.S. Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-Fla., made false statements about putting a former mistress on his payroll, sources say.
Contestants (L-R) Cooper Barth of West Long Branch, New Jersey, Eboseremhen Eigbe of Galloway, New Jersey, Jacob Bayly Hunter of Sante Fe, New Mexico and Massound Sharif of Albany, New York, all await their turns to compete during the 3rd round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, May 30, 2012, in National Harbor, Maryland. UPI/Mike Theiler
