NEW YORK – U.S. stocks rallied Monday, with the Dow and the S&P 500 making their biggest one-day gains in a month, as investors welcomed a flurry of corporate takeovers a day before U.S. congressional elections. The Dow Jones industrial average climbed 119.51 points, or 1.00 percent, to end at …

WOODBURY, Vt. – No one is sure when daily recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance fell by the wayside at Woodbury Elementary School. But efforts to restore them have erupted into a bitter dispute in this town of about 800 residents, with school officials blocking the exercise from classrooms over …

WASHINGTON – World leaders emerging from a financial summit in Washington pledged to continue taking “urgent and exceptional” action to revive the global economy Saturday, calling for increased cooperation and regulation to prevent the crippling crisis from repeating itself. President Bush, speaking after the meeting, stressed that the emergency summit …

Hundreds of thousands of baby boomer women who think they’ve found an antidote to aging in cosmetic facial fillers must be better informed of possible risks, government health advisers said Tuesday. A panel of independent advisers urged the Food and Drug Administration to revise the labeling to include the possibility …

BAGHDAD – A woman hiding a bomb under her long robe blew herself up Monday among Iraqis waiting to enter the U.S.-protected Green Zone, where lawmakers plan to vote this week on a pact that would let American forces stay in Iraq for up to three more years. The morning …

MONROE, Ohio – Police in southwestern Ohio say a police chief mistakenly shot himself in the thigh after giving his daughter a gun safety lesson. A police report says 54-year-old Middletown police Chief Greg Schwarber was preparing to clean his Glock .45-caliber pistol on Friday and didn’t realize the gun …

WASHINGTON – Rep. Henry Waxman — a liberal ally of Speaker Nancy Pelosi — has wrested the chairmanship of the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee from veteran Rep. John Dingell when the new Congress convenes in January. Waxman, a California liberal and avid environmentalist and booster of health care …

PUEBLO, Colo. – A restaurant collapsed after an explosion on Thursday, trapping at least one person inside and injuring at least one other person, police said. The injured person was found outside the building, but it wasn’t clear whether the person was inside the Branch Inn at the time of …

MANGUM, Okla. – He had heard the rumors about them and even saw them together, but Jack Crowley never acted to change the trusty status of an inmate that might have altered the prisoner’s relationship with the wife of Crowley’s assistant warden. The former Oklahoma State Reformatory warden testified last …

LONDON – Britain’s House of Lords voted Monday against a controversial plan to extend the amount of time police can hold terrorism suspects without charge from 28 to 42 days while an investigation is conducted. Members of the House of Lords rejected the proposals by 309 votes to 118 after …