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NEW YORK – Manufacturing activity expanded for the 19th consecutive month in December, a research group reported Monday, suggesting that the industrial sector entered the new year with solid strength behind it. The Institute for Supply Management (search) said that its main index measuring industrial activity rose to 58.6 in …

A Brooklyn, N.Y., high school had to weed its courtyard garden after a marijuana plant was found growing among the black-eyed Susans and cornflowers. The New York Daily News reported that Winston McCarthy, assistant principal of Paul Robeson High School (search) in the slowly gentrifying Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood, ripped the illicit …

KABUL, Afghanistan – Afghanistan on Tuesday condemned the killing of up to 17 civilians in a U.S. airstrike, and a senior U.S. defense official confirmed the deaths of two Navy SEALS (search) who were missing in action in the country’s northeast. The airstrike came Friday in Kunar province (search), which …

OAKLAND, Calif. – A Bay Area Rapid Transit (search) walkout was averted early Wednesday when unionized workers reached an agreement with management less than two hours before the trains that carry more than 300,000 riders each day were threatened to be shut down. The deal was announced by BART spokesman …

LONDON – Ten days after Islamic radicals carried out deadly attacks on the London transport system, Britain’s largest Sunni Muslim group on Sunday issued a binding religious edict, a fatwa, condemning the July 7 homicide bombings as the work of a “perverted ideology.” The Sunni Council (search) denounced the bombings …

WASHINGTON – A federal judge said Friday she will consider the views of anti-smoking and health advocates if she decides to impose sanctions against cigarette makers in the U.S. government’s racketeering case against against the industry. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler granted a motion by six anti-smoking groups to intervene …

ORANJESTAD, Aruba – Aruba’s chief government spokesman said Friday that three young men detained in the disappearance of an Alabama teenager have not been formally charged but could be as soon as Monday. Earlier, Aruba’s attorney general, Karin Janssen (search), told The Associated Press that the young men had been …

HONG KONG – In a move to exploit China’s fast-growing market, FedEx Corp. (FDX) said Wednesday it will close its Asian hub in the Philippines (search) and replace it with a new $150 million facility in Guangzhou, southern China. The new cargo-handling center at Guangzhou’s Baiyun International Airport, scheduled to …

LAHORE, Pakistan – Intelligence officials are looking into a tip that one of the suspects in the London bombings (search) may have visited Pakistan during the past year and spent time at an Islamic school, a senior intelligence official said Thursday. Authorities also are looking into whether other suspects in …

Statins and other popular cholesterol-lowering drugs may help your heart, but they may not protect your brain from age-related diseases such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, a new study shows. The most common types of dementia include Alzheimer’s disease and dementias resulting from blood vessel abnormalities. Some evidence supports the …