KUWAIT CITY – Kuwaiti lawmakers approved political rights for women Monday, clearing the way for females to participate in parliamentary elections for the first time in the Gulf nation’s history. However, fundamentalist Muslims included a requirement that any female politician or voter abide by Islamic law (search). It was not …

See you weeknights in the No Spin Zone at 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. ET! Tonight … “The O’Reilly Factor” is on… Was the recent shooting of an unarmed man in Compton, California (search), a hate crime? That’s what the Rev. Jesse Jackson (search) said yesterday. He is calling the …

MOSCOW – They were the jokes heard around the world. And before meeting privately Sunday with his American counterpart, Russian President Vladimir Putin (search) got off some lines of his own about U.S. first lady Laura Bush’s (search) recent standup comedy routine at a high-profile Washington dinner. At the annual …

SAN JOSE, Calif. – The mysterious finger that a woman claimed to have found in a bowl of Wendy’s (search) chili came from an associate of her husband who lost the finger in an industrial accident, police said Friday. “The jig is up. The puzzle pieces are beginning to fall …

More than half of patients with chronic cough have symptoms of depression, researchers report at the American Thoracic Society international conference. The New York study of individuals with chronic cough showed that more than half had reduced quality-of-life scores, which increased their risk for depression. “Cough is among the most …

FORT HOOD, Texas – Pfc. Lynndie England (search) on Tuesday surrendered her right to challenge the seven charges she faces as a result of the Abu Ghraib (search) prison abuse scandal, moving her one step closer to a new military trial. Her defense attorney, Capt. Jonathan Crisp (search), would not …

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon (search) is scrapping plans to terminate a contract for the C-130J Hercules cargo and personnel transport aircraft because of new information about the costs, according to a letter received Wednesday by U.S. lawmakers. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld (search), who had previously told lawmakers he …

NEW YORK – 3M Co. (MMM) Thursday said it would acquire filtration products maker CUNO Inc. (CUNO) for about $1.35 billion in a move to capitalize on the growing need for water purification globally. Water purification is being targeted as a high-growth market by other companies, including General Electric Co. …

WASHINGTON – The Bush administration claimed success on Tuesday for its program designed to intercept weapons technology, saying it helped end Libya’s weapons program. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Proliferation Security Initiative (search), an operation conducted jointly with dozens of other countries, provided the “framework” for intercepting centrifuge …

WASHINGTON – The firebrand British member of Parliament who has been accused of accepting oil vouchers as part of the Oil-for-Food (search) scandal told U.S. lawmakers Tuesday he did nothing wrong and accused the United States of diverting attention from their own crimes in Iraq by implicating him. George Galloway …