Republican front-runner pads his delegate count with key state victorySCHAUMBURG, Illinois (AP) ― Mitt Romney easily won the Republican presidential primary in Illinois on Tuesday night, padding his already-formidable lead over chief rival Rick Santorum with another victory in a key industrial state.Romney, a multimillionaire who has the backing of most of the Republican establishment but struggles with the party’s more conservative wing, is leading the overall race for delegates to choose a can

Gondolas in Venice (123rf image)Water is increasingly encroaching on Venice, Italy, and it's not just the rising sea; researchers say they've confirm the coastal city is still sinking.Although some previous studies have suggested the city had stabilized, U.S. researchers say the historic northern It

A strong 7.4-magnitude earthquake hit central and southern Mexico on Tuesday, damaging some 800 homes near the epicenter and swaying tall buildings and spreading fear and panic hundreds of miles away in the capital of Mexico City.  A woman comforts her children outside a school at the Roma neig

SEATTLE (AP) ― Starbucks Corp. is pushing beyond coffee with the opening of the first Evolution Fresh Inc. juice store, the company said Monday. Starbucks, which is looking for new businesses for growth, purchased the California-based juice maker in November for $30 million. Evolution Fresh had been selling its juices in grocery stores such as Whole Foods groceries. The first Evolution Fresh store is in Bellevue, Washington. Aside from juices, Starbucks says Evolution Fresh shops will have wraps

NEW YORK (AP) ― Wendy’s has dethroned Burger King as the country’s second biggest hamburger chain.Wendy’s edged out Burger King in U.S. sales volume for the first time last year since Wendy’s was founded in 1969, according to a report by the food industry research firm Technomic Inc. that’s set to be released next month.Wendy’s had sales of $8.5 billion in 2011, compared with $8.4 billion for Burger King. McDonald’s remained far larger than both with $34.2 billion in sales.The figures are based

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― Moody’s on Monday left Spain’s credit rating unchanged despite the country’s missing its deficit goal and requiring new targets to be set.“The easier targets do not affect the country’s “A3” government bond rating with negative outlook because Moody’s had already incorporated a likely deviation from original fiscal targets and a slower pace of fiscal consolidation into its analysis,” the ratings agency said.The ratings confirmation came after Brussels allowed Madrid to relax i

Federal Reserve Bank of New York President William C. Dudley said signs the economy is improving don’t dispel risks to growth that include higher gasoline prices, fiscal cutbacks and a weak housing market. “The incoming data on the U.S. economy has been a bit more upbeat of late, suggesting that the recovery may be getting better established,” Dudley said Monday in a speech in Melville, New York. “But, while these developments are certainly encouraging, it is far too soon to conclude that we are

BEIJING (AP) ― One of China’s most powerful politicians interfered in an investigation involving a family member before he was fired last week, news reports said Tuesday, the latest revelation in what has become China’s biggest political scandal in years.Bo Xilai’s removal as Communist Party boss of Chongqing city appears to have brought a screeching stop to the career of one of the country’s most ambitious politicians.The reports on numerous online news sites, including dwnews.com and Boxun.com

JERUSALEM (AP) ― Albert Einstein’s complete archives ― from personal correspondence with half a dozen lovers to notebooks scribbled with his groundbreaking scientific research ― are going online for the first time.The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which owns the German Jewish physicist’s papers, is pulling never-before seen items from its climate-controlled safe, photographing them in high resolution and posting them on the Internet ― offering the public a nuanced and fuller portrait of the ma

SPRINGFIELD, Illinois (AP) ― An increasingly confident Mitt Romney looked for a primary win Tuesday in President Barack Obama’s adopted home state of Illinois, a victory that would put him ever closer to becoming the Republicans’ choice to challenge the president in the general election.Romney was attacking Obama’s economic policies even as the president’s standing in the polls has improved in recent weeks along with signs that the U.S. economy was on course for a sustained recovery. But Obama,

Police called off the search for survivors of a plane crash Saturday after discovering body parts on the site where the Norwegian military cargo aircraft slammed into Sweden's highest mountain. Police, military and members of the Swedish accident investigation authority, comb the crash site are