CHICAGO – Three high school students were shot Tuesday morning on a street near their school, and one was in critical condition, officials said. The shootings happened shortly before 8 a.m. near Carl Schurz High School, Chicago Police spokeswoman Patrice Harper said. The victims are male students — two freshmen …

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – High winds forced NASA to scrub the launch Tuesday of an unmanned spacecraft on a nine-year, 3-billion-mile voyage to Pluto, the solar system’s last unexplored planet. NASA planned to try again Wednesday to launch the New Horizons probe, although the forecast held a greater chance of …

WASHINGTON – An American Muslim advocacy group is traveling to the Middle East to plead for the safe return of a journalist facing death at the hands of her kidnappers. The Council on American-Islamic Relations is planning to hold one news conference Thursday in Amman, Jordan, and another Friday in …

DETROIT – Shares of General Motors Corp. (GM) fell nearly 5 percent on Tuesday after Banc of America Securities cut its target price for the automaker’s stock. The brokerage firm lowered the target price to $13 from $16, citing lower savings from GM’s recent health-care agreement with the United Auto …

TORONTO – A 6-year-old cow from an Alberta farm has tested positive for mad cow disease, officials said Monday. Dr. Brian Evans, Canada’s chief veterinary officer, said the affected animal had not entered the human food or animal-feed systems. The announcement came after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency spokesman, Mark …

NEW YORK – The burnt-out hit man Pierce Brosnan plays in “The Matador” cowers in a stairwell after another botched job, reduced to tears, blubbering: “I’m a wreck. I’m a parody.” The 52-year-old actor appreciates how those words might have haunted his real-life career if he hadn’t been cashiered from …

MOSCOW – Russia and Ukraine reached a deal Wednesday to resume gas shipments to Ukraine under a complex price scheme, ending a standoff that raised fears of long-term shortages in Europe. The agreement was announced in Moscow by the heads of OAO Gazprom and Naftogaz, the two countries’ state-run natural …

NEW YORK – No job in the theater lasts forever. At “The Phantom of the Opera,” it only seems that way. On Monday, Jan. 9, the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical — with performance number 7,486 — becomes the longest running show in Broadway history, surpassing another of the British composer’s …

WASHINGTON – The American-trained police force in Afghanistan is not effectively trained and is incapable of carrying out routine law enforcement duties, a U.S. government report found. The joint report by the Pentagon and the State Department has been circulated to members of relevant congressional committees, The New York Times …

OCALA, Florida – The execution of a convicted killer from Puerto Rico took 34 minutes — twice as long as normal — because officials botched the insertion of the needles that delivered the lethal chemicals, a medical examiner said Friday. Gov. Jeb Bush responded to Dr. William Hamilton’s preliminary findings …