NEW YORK – An 11-year-old boy from Iraq underwent heart surgery Monday in New York, the first of four ailing children who will be treated this week after their families sought help from the U.S. military. Wsam Rabea was vulnerable to sudden death from a heart problem until the early …

DENVER – A winter storm with snow and wind gusts up to 75 mph blew across the Colorado Rockies on Thursday, knocking down trees, causing accidents and shutting down roads including heavily traveled Interstate 70 west of Denver. Drivers slowed to a crawl on icy, snow-packed roads in the mountains …

LOS ANGELES – The photographer whose collision with actress Lindsay Lohan helped prompt California to adopt an anti-paparazzi law won’t be charged with a crime, the district attorney’s office said. Deputy District Attorney William Hodgman said there was no evidence photographer Galo Cesar Ramirez deliberately crashed his minivan into Lohan’s …

JAKARTA, Indonesia – An Australian woman was convicted in Indonesia Friday of smuggling marijuana onto Bali (search) island in her surfboard bag and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Schapelle Corby (search), 27, fought back tears as the verdict was announced. The maximum penalty for a conviction was death, but …

ORLANDO, Fla. – No one could have been more surprised than the doctors themselves. They were just hoping to relieve the symptoms of a deadly blood disorder — and ended up treating the disease itself. In nearly half of the people who took the experimental drug, the cancer (search) became …

PASADENA, Calif. – The Mars rover Opportunity (search) is making progress getting itself unstuck from a sand dune that’s immobilized it for the past two weeks, engineers said Monday. Opportunity moved 4.6 centimeters — a bit less than 2 inches — over the weekend after scientists sent new driving directions …

FORT KNOX, Ky. – A drill sergeant was given a bad-conduct discharge Tuesday after he was convicted of punching soldier trainees and knocking them to the ground, then threatening to punish them if they cooperated with an investigation. Staff Sgt. Michael Rhoades (search), 33, was also ordered to serve 30 …

Despite some concerns that a small plane got too close to the White House (search) and the Capitol (search), key lawmakers and the Bush administration said the emergency response went according to plan. “One of the things we learned was that the evacuation procedures worked swimmingly … It was all …

CLEVELAND – Adella Gary’s life was saved when neighbors banged on her door and dragged her out of her home as fire engulfed the building next door. Two men carried her husband, who lost a leg to diabetes, down the stairs. “I heard some popping, some pop-pop-popping, and I thought, …

FULLERTON, Calif. – Thurl Ravenscroft (search), who provided the rumbling “They’re Grrrrreeeat!” for Kellogg’s Tony the Tiger (search) ads and voiced a host of Disney (search) characters, has died. He was 91. Ravenscroft died Sunday of prostate cancer, said Diane Challis Davy, director of Laguna Beach’s Pageant of the Masters. …