Less invasive weight loss surgery is on the rise, but patients need to look for hospitals that have performed this procedure at least 100 times to help ensure their safety. Interest in gastric bypass surgery, in which part of the stomach is bypassed to help obese people lose weight, continues …

ROME – Italian scientists said they have created their second cloned horse — produced from the DNA of a thoroughbred Arabian gelding race champion. The foal, named Pieraz-Cryozootech-Stallion (search), was born Feb. 25, weighed 93 pounds and was “in excellent health,” said scientists at the Laboratory of Reproductive Technology in …

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso – A tanker truck exploded in northern Benin, killing at least 35 people who were siphoning gasoline, officials said Thursday. The truck overturned near Benin’s northern border with Burkina Faso on Wednesday, then ignited in the evening when a group of local people converged to siphon off …

COMMERCE CITY, Colo. – A woman accused of locking her 13-year-old grandson in a kennel for 11 hours a day for three years while she went to work at a sheriff’s department made a brief appearance in court Tuesday. Authorities said June Candelario, 61, shut the boy in the kennel …

NEW ORLEANS – Newly re-elected Mayor Ray Nagin expressed confidence that political opponents and business leaders would unite to rebuild this hurricane-stricken city. “We’re going to bring this city together. It’s my intention to reach out to every segment of this community,” Nagin said Sunday, a day after defeating Lt. …

Howdy folks, welcome to another week of cable casting! I hope you had a great weekend — ours was great. You were curious weren’t you? I got into a bit of trouble earlier today when I was doing the weather for Florida today and I said that the weather was, …

CAIRO, Egypt – Al Qaeda video messages of Usama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri can now be downloaded to cell phones, the terror network announced as part of its attempts to extend its influence. The announcement was posted late Friday by Al Qaeda’s media wing, al-Sahab, on Web sites commonly …

With the Atlantic hurricane season starting in less than two weeks, a new report shows that hurricanes can cast a long shadow on survivors’ mental health. The report comes from sociology graduate student David Russell and colleagues at Florida State University. Russell’s team studied 975 adolescents in Florida’s Miami-Dade County …

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Lightning struck and instantly killed two boys playing soccer and a man cutting fodder in separate incidents in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, officials said. Saddam Hussain, 12, and Zain ul-Abideen, 10, died in Khar, the main town in Bajur tribal region, about 55 miles north of the …

WASHINGTON – In the latest White House personnel changes, the editor of a conservative magazine will replace Claude Allen, the domestic policy adviser who left in February amid a shoplifting investigation. The White House announced the appointment Wednesday of Karl Zinsmeister, who has been editor-in-chief of The American Enterprise magazine …