NEW YORK (AP) - The former television producer who tried to blackmail David Letterman was freed Thursday after four months in jail for a plot that put a spotlight on the comic icon's office affairs, city Correction Department records show.

Robert "Joe" Halderman got time off for good behavior from his ...

GLENDALE, Ariz. | With the controversy swirling ahead of him on the Arizona quarterback depth chart, Max Hall wrapped up his preseason with a big night.

The undrafted rookie from BYU completed 7 of 9 passes for 126 yards and scored on a 6-yard run in the Cardinals' 20-10 victory ...

ST. LOUIS | One perfect series and done for Sam Bradford.

No doubt, facing the Baltimore Ravens' second-string defense made it easier for the No. 1 pick.

Bradford made another favorable impression in his second preseason start, going 6 for 6 for 68 yards and a touchdown ...

BUXTON, N.C. | The last ferry left for the mainland, and coastal residents hunkered down at home as Hurricane Earl closed in with 110 mph winds Thursday on North Carolina's dangerously exposed Outer Banks, the first and potentially most destructive stop on the storm's projected journey up the Eastern Seaboard.

BALTIMORE | The Boston Red Sox put a satisfactory finish on a potentially disastrous road trip.

Adrian Beltre homered to spark a five-run second inning, and the Red Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles 6-4 on Thursday night to win the three-game series.

David Ortiz drove in two ...

The Obama administration could be breaking the law if it follows through on guidance that would mean the government detains fewer illegal immigrants, two top Republican senators said in a warning letter to the Department of Homeland Security this week.

In recent memos, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which controls ...

With interest rates near zero and the Federal Reserve already owning a large share of the mortgage and Treasury securities markets, many investors fear the central bank may be out of ammunition should the economy take a serious turn for the worse.

But Fed-watchers say the central bank, despite its ...

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit Thursday against "America's toughest sheriff," Joe Arpaio in Phoenix, accusing him, the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and the county of refusing to fully cooperate in a federal investigation into allegations that he and his deputies are guilty of racial discrimination.

The lawsuit, filed in ...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Kaitlin Olson and Rob McElhenney (MAK'-uh-lay-nee) of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" hit a home run with their new baby boy.

A spokeswoman for the couple says Olson gave birth to Alex Lee McElhenney at home in the Los Angeles area Wednesday. He weighed in at 8 ...

McGREGOR, Texas | Rep. Chet Edwards, an imperiled Democrat running for his political life deep in the heart of Republican territory, finds exiting American Legion Post No. 273 slow going.

The wife of a World War II veteran hugs him. Several men line up to shake his hand. Another woman ...

STRONG BREW

Yeah. It's political. The bodacious, unapologetic "tea party" is ready to rumble on Sept. 12 when the National Mall will be wall to wall with those who favor less taxes, smaller government and a return to traditional American values. Unlike Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" folks, the tea partiers ...

The aftershocks from Alaska are being felt clear across the country in Delaware.

Days after underdog Joe Miller knocked off Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the GOP primary there, Delaware GOP Rep. Michael N. Castle - long seen as a prohibitive favorite to capture the state's open Senate seat in ...

With recent polls showing Republicans poised for major congressional gains this fall, party leaders are wary of appearing overconfident and peaking too soon, playing down for now the prospect of winning majorities in the House and Senate in a vote that is still two months away.

The caution comes despite ...

Defying President Obama, Congress seems increasingly reluctant to let taxes go up, even on wealthier Americans.

Worried about the fragile economy and their own upcoming elections, a growing number of Democratic lawmakers are joining the rock-solid Republican opposition to Mr. Obama's plans to let some of the tax cuts passed ...

WHITE HOUSE

Obama to hold press conference

President Obama will hold a press conference at the White House on Sept. 10.

The White House said Mr. Obama would use the event as an opportunity to discuss his administration's work on the economy, capping a week in which the president will ...

Top Amtrak officials declined to participate in an internal investigation until they were provided private lawyers on the government-owned company's dime, an unusual request considering they were not even targets of the probe.

Records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show that Amtrak Treasurer Dale Stein, General Counsel Eleanor ...

MONTGOMERY, ALA. (AP) - Alabama defensive end Marcell Dareus has been declared ineligible for two games for accepting nearly $2,000 in improper benefits during two trips to Miami.

An NCAA ruling Thursday also ordered Dareus, defensive MVP of the national championship game, to pay $1,787 dollars to a charity of his ...

Entertainer and philanthropist Bill Cosby says the Howard Theatre is a gem "in our community's crown," and on Thursday, D.C. officials and well-wishers held a groundbreaking ceremony to restore that jewel of a historic playhouse.

Having slipped into darkness since integration and the 1968 D.C. riots ripped through the U ...

It will take the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) another seven years to implement new policies already seven years old aimed at improving weaknesses in its prison furlough program, a predicament the Justice Department's internal watchdog on Thursday called "unacceptable."

The reason is simple: The policy can't be implemented until BOP ...

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) - The NCAA investigation hovering over North Carolina's football program has frustrated everyone at the university from administrators to alumni.

The probe initially focused on whether two players received improper benefits from agents, but its expansion into possible academic violations that could sideline numerous players for this ...

"This is worse than a crime, it's a blunder," said French statesman Charles M. de Talleyrand. The statement sums up President Obama's approach to Iraq.

In a nationally televised address from the Oval Office on Tuesday, Mr. Obama announced the official end of "combat operations". He argued that with the ...

One month ago - without notice to Congress, without a word to the American people - the Department of Homeland Security began dismissing from U.S. immigration courts the cases of thousands of illegal aliens. The department says it will focus its efforts on removing criminal aliens. Aliens without serious criminal ...

CINCINNATI (AP) - There won't be any senior moments when two-time Big East champion Cincinnati sends it defense out for the first time this weekend.

That's a problem.

The Bearcats don't have any senior starters on defense this season, leaving it a big concern heading into their opener Saturday at Fresno State. ...

IOWA CITY, IOWA (AP) - Kirk Ferentz has said for years that he doesn't plan on leaving Iowa anytime soon, turning down overtures to the NFL seemingly offseason.

He's given the school yet another reason to rest at ease.

Ferentz has agreed to a five-year contract extension through 2020, possibly keeping him ...

CHICAGO (AP) - The first week of the final season of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" will include a selection for Oprah's Book Club.

A Harpo spokeswoman said Thursday that Winfrey will announce her 64th and latest pick during a live episode airing on Sept. 17. That would be 14 years to ...

SILVER SPRING, MD. (AP) - A fire chief says crews detonated four explosives linked to a gunman who took three hostages at Discovery Communications headquarters in Maryland.

Montgomery County Fire Chief Richard Bowers said Thursday that officials took the devices from a home.

They were in addition to four devices that hostage-taker ...

College coaches have descended on Rock Hill, S.C., all with a common purpose: To woo defensive end Jadeveon Clowney.

They've also been making the rounds all over the South from Hyattsville, Md., to Tampa, Fla., mining the talent-rich region for elite players and potential gems alike.

Clowney, a defensive end at Rock ...

Best-Selling Books Week Ended August 22

FICTION

1. "Mockingjay" by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic Press)

2. "The Postcard Killers" by James Patterson and Liza Marklund (Little, Brown)

3. "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" by Stieg Larsson (Knopf)

4. "Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic)

5. "Spider Bones: A Novel" by Kathy Reichs (Scribner)

6. "The Help" ...

MIAMI (AP) - Paris Hilton may owe investors in her 2006 movie "Pledge This!" about $160,000 for failing to do enough promotion.

U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno in Miami ruled Thursday that the 29-year-old celebrity socialite didn't live up to her contract when refusing interviews with publications in Russia and the ...

With just a little more than two months before the general election in Burma, scheduled for Nov. 7, the United States joined countries such as Australia, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic and Slovakia for the creation of a United Nations-led commission to investigate purported war crimes by Burma's military ...

HO CHI MINH CITY

Let's take the really bad news first. Not only did it stink, but the Obama administration, which should lambast this kind of thing, held its nose and instead ramped up its ongoing courtship of Hanoi as a hedge against China.

Last week, at the 65th anniversary ...

Alma Preciado, a mortgage broker and one-time prominent figure in Maryland politics, has been captured in Mexico more than a year after she skipped her sentencing in a mortgage fraud case that prompted a judge to call her Montgomery County's own "little Bernie Madoff."

Robert A. Hill, senior assistant Montgomery ...

China's Economic Observer reporter Qiu Ziming beat the odds in July by not going to jail. Mr. Qui had been the target of a Zhejiang police arrest warrant issued at the behest of a powerful local paper company, which Mr. Qiu had exposed for insider trading. Police withdrew the arrest ...

OPINION/ANALYSIS:

Contrary to the news flow, it's been a rather quiet week for me. One that reminds me of crickets, not so much because of the noise crickets make but the absence of other noise that lets you hear the crickets. With some slack in the schedule, I thought a ...

VENICE, Italy | The latest movie by Julian Schnabel couldn't have been more timely.

"Miral" chronicles decades of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the rarely seen perspective of Palestinian women. The film, dedicated by the director to everyone on both sides who wants peace, had its world premiere Thursday at the ...

NEW YORK (AP) - Members of the original funk band War say they can't be friends with PepsiCo.

They're suing the soft drink maker for more than $10 million, saying it did not negotiate with them to use their song "Why Can't We Be Friends?" in a new commercial.

Even if PepsiCo ...

The Food and Drug Administration, consistently overstepping its food-safety charter to promote itself as enlightened custodian of the masses, has already spent the summer waging a war to further expand the nanny state - e-cigarettes, plastic containers and cough medicines have all become targets for an expanded regulatory regime and ...

The big three credit-rating agencies that totally missed the meltdown of the subprime mortgage market - Moody's, Standard & Poor's and Fitch - still give the United States a AAA credit rating. But there's a newcomer in the credit-rating game - Dagong Global Credit Rating - which has a very ...

Sadly, there isn't much to celebrate this Labor Day. With official unemployment hovering near 10 percent and real unemployment at around 15 percent, many fellow Americans are laboring just to find a job. With the job market so bleak, some Americans actually have quit looking. That doesn't even register with ...

NEW YORK (AP) - Chris Brown is back to a familiar place _ the No. 1 spot on the Billboard charts.

The 21-year-old's latest song, the goodbye groove "Deuces," hit the top spot of Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop songs chart this week.

Since Brown's February 2009 altercation with then-girlfriend Rihanna, he has not had ...