SANTA MONICA, Calif., Dec. 28 (UPI) -- Sculptor Robert Graham, who earned fame for designing civic monuments, has died in Santa Monica, Calif., after a nearly six-month illness, a friend says.

LOS ANGELES, May 17 (UPI) -- U.S. soldiers returning from overseas military service should receive better benefits, U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif., said Saturday.

MOSCOW, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- The government of Russian President Vladimir Putin is drawing parallels between the leader and World War II-era U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

NEW YORK, March 1 (UPI) -- Arthur Schlesinger Jr., the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning historian who served as an adviser in the Kennedy Administration, has died in New York at 89.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 19 (UPI) -- U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Friday have warned President Bush he no longer has a "blank check" for Iraq.

CANBERRA, Australia, Oct. 18 (UPI) -- A Canberra-based analyst is warning that North Korea may possibly use a ship to smuggle its nuclear weapons into foreign ports.

ALBUQUERQUE, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- National Guard chief Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum told the National Guard Association of the U.S. General Conference in Albuquerque that more equipment is needed. Blum said, "We are superbly equipped overseas."

LOS ANGELES, March 23 (UPI) -- A Los Angeles man who worked cleaning buses for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for 76 years has called it quits on his 100th birthday.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 13 (UPI) -- Organizers of a new Martin Luther King Jr., memorial hope to break ground on Washington's National Mall in November.