MEXICO CITY – Mexico ended a decades-long tradition of warm relations with Fidel Castro’s government when it recalled its ambassador to Cuba and sent the Cuban ambassador here home. Both Mexico and Peru announced late Sunday that they were recalling their ambassadors from the communist-run island as a result of …

The actress who played Mary Ann on “Gilligan’s Island” told “FOX and Friends” Friday morning that it was not her marijuana that was found in her car last fall and that another man admitted it was his. Dawn Wells, 69, said she was pulled over in Idaho in October after …

WASHINGTON – The State Department is advising Americans planning to attend the Olympic Games in Beijing to take care and be mindful that they could be under surveillance. “All hotel rooms and offices are considered to be subject to on-site or remote technical monitoring at all times,” the department’s Bureau …

NEW YORK – About a quarter of the nation’s TV stations cut off their analog signals Tuesday, causing sets to go dark in households that were not prepared for digital television despite two years of warnings about the transition. Though most viewers were ready — and people with cable or …

NEW YORK – A second-generation all-natural nose spray called Sinol-M, whose main ingredient is capsaicin derived from hot peppers, safely and effectively relieves stubborn nasal allergies, according to results of a controlled clinical study. “This study proved for the first time that a homeopathic nasal spray containing capsaicin is an …

Illegal anti-impotence drugs and herbs contaminated with the diabetes drug glyburide have caused some 150 cases of dangerously low blood sugar, researchers in Singapore reported on Wednesday. Four people have died, they said in the New England Journal of Medicine. The drugs include counterfeit Cialis and herbal preparations with names …

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – A young male hippopotamus has made a new home in a sewage plant, South African wildlife officials said Thursday. The nearly 1,800-pound hippo wandered into Cape Town’s Cape Flats Waste Water Treatment plant from an adjacent marsh after a fence was stolen, said Julia Wood, manager …

PARIS – French prosecutors say the manslaughter trial of Continental Airlines and five people over the 2000 crash of a Concorde jet that killed 113 people will begin outside Paris next year. They said Monday the trial is set to open Feb. 2, 2010, in the Paris suburb of Pontoise, …

NEW YORK – Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp. sold more cars and trucks last year than General Motors Corp., stripping the Detroit automaker of the No. 1 global sales crown. But it’s a victory made hollow by the overall industry’s continued struggle for viability amid one of its worst sales declines …

LOS ANGELES – There’s no need to cry, Dora. The programmer Viacom and Time Warner Cable agreed on compensation that preserved access for the cable system operator’s 15.7 million subscribers to Dora’s Nickelodeon network, MTV and 17 other channels. The two sides, citing disagreement over fee hikes, had threatened a …