Former Enron Corp. chief Jeffrey Skilling, convicted three years ago of fraud, is scheduled to be resentenced Thursday after a federal appeals court vacated his 24-year sentence earlier this year. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans, Louisiana, affirmed Skilling's conviction in January but dumped the sentence handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Sim Lake in Houston, Texas. Skilling was sentenced to 24 years and 4 months in jail for deceiving investors and employees ...

With four Phoenix, Arizona, boys ages 9 to 14 charged with sexual assault on an 8-year-old girl, a prosecutor vowed Thursday his office will "seek justice for the young victim in this heartrending situation." "This is a deeply disturbing case that has gripped our community," said Maricopa County attorney Andrew Thomas. According to Phoenix police, the girl was lured to a storage shed at an apartment complex on July 16. The four boys, who had offered the girl chewing gum, ...

A former hospital employee may have exposed hundreds, or even thousands, of surgical patients to hepatitis C after taking their fentanyl injections and replacing them with used syringes filled with saline solution, authorities say. Kristen Diane Parker, who worked at Rose Medical Center in Denver, has admitted to secretly injecting herself in a bathroom and using unclean syringes as replacements for patients, investigators said. She had hepatitis C, which she believes she contracted through using heroin and sharing dirty needles ...

The average price per gallon of self-serve regular gasoline is $2.66, up 16.68 cents from two weeks ago, the Lundberg Survey found. The price, an average of thousands of gas stations nationwide, is $1.34 lower than a year ago. Last year in June, retail gas prices were nearing $4, and stayed at that level or above until late July. The most recent increase is not a reflection of increased demand, according to survey publisher Trilby Lundberg. "It's a ...

Americans are spending less; no surprise there. Figures out this week from the Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis show that in April overall consumer spending was down 0.1% from the month before. People are now saving 5.7% of their disposable income, the most since 1995 and a cosmic increase from the zero-savings days of just a few years ago. Yet those numbers are far from the whole story. People aren't cutting back equally in all ...

The Orlando Magic toppled the Cleveland Cavaliers on Saturday night to claim a spot in the NBA finals championship series for the first time in 14 years. The Magic's 103-90 home win in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals earned the team a trip to Los Angeles to face the Lakers. Orlando made it to the title round in 1995, one year before Shaquille O'Neal left for Los Angeles. "Tonight was a tough night, it was disappointing," coach Mike ...

Gun shops across the country are reporting a run on ammunition, a phenomenon apparently driven by fear that the Obama administration will increase taxes on bullets or enact new gun-control measures. "In the last two months it's gotten very, very difficult to find ammunition," says Richard Taylor, manager of The Firing Line, a gun shop and shooting range in the Denver, Colorado, suburbs. "There are a lot of rumors floating around that the present government would like to increase taxes ...

Asian markets were buoyed on Monday as a report showed manufacturing output in China on the rise, while Asian governments agreed to create a $120 billion foreign currency reserve fund. The notice would allow The New York Times Co., which owns the Massachusetts newspaper, to close it in 60 days, the Globe reported. The Times Co. is seeking $10 million from the Boston Newspaper Guild, $5 million from the mailers, $2.5 million from the delivery truck drivers and $2.2 million ...

On May 4, 2007, a monster tornado tore through this rural town, killing 11 people and leaving little more than empty slabs and stacks of debris. Greensburg, 109 miles west of Wichita in south-central Kansas, faced the daunting task of rebuilding from scratch. Like most residents, Greensburg City Administrator Steve Hewitt lost his home and everything he owned. But Hewitt believes the tornado had a silver lining, for it made this town of some 1,400 people regroup and reinvent itself. ...

Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger's run-in with a flock of Canada geese may be the most famous man-versus-nature story in recent months. But a federal database opened to the public Friday reveals just how commonplace airplanes' encounters with wildlife are. At New York's LaGuardia Airport, where Sullenberger's US Airways flight originated, planes hit birds nearly once a week on average, according to the records. But the number has grown from 16 hits in 1990 to 86 in 2008, according to the ...