Charges have been dropped against four men accused of raping an 18-year-old student at Hofstra University after the woman recanted her allegations, prosecutors said. A judge dismissed all charges Wednesday night and ordered the release of the four men -- Jesus Ortiz, 19; Stalin Felipe, 19; Kevin Taveras, 20; and Rondell Bedward, 21; all of the New York metropolitan area, according to Nassau County, New York, District Attorney Kathleen Rice. They had been arrested, arraigned and jailed, with bail set ...

Mexican federal authorities have arrested 124 law enforcement officials in Hidalgo state on suspicion of being linked to the Zetas drug cartel, considered the nation's most ruthless and dangerous crime syndicate. Most of those arrested were municipal police officers, but there also were some high-level state and federal officials, according to the Mexico attorney general's office. Among them were Juan Antonio Franco Bustos, chief of coordination for Hidalgo state security; Julio Cesar Sanchez Amador, head of public security in the ...

Investigators found the remains of a woman they assume is missing Yale graduate student Annie Le, a senior police official said Sunday. The remains were found inside a wall at 10 Amistad Street, said Peter Reichard, New Haven, Connecticut, assistant police chief. "She hasn't been positively identified, however, we are assuming that it is her at this time so we are treating it as a homicide investigation," Reichard said. Le was last seen on a Yale security camera entering the ...

Police are looking into the death of the former chief fundraiser for ex-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich as a "death-suicide investigation," an Illinois mayor said Sunday. Financier Christopher Kelly told police shortly before he died Saturday that he took an "overdose of drugs," said Dwight Welch, mayor of Country Club Hills, Illinois. Country Club Hills police found several drugs in Kelly's black 2007 Cadillac Escalade, but they were not sure yet whether they were prescribed, Welch said. Country Club Hills is ...

There is no reason to believe that a missing Yale graduate student and bride-to-be ran away, the school's vice president said Saturday. Annie Le, a pharmacology student, was to be married Sunday. She was last seen Tuesday outside the Yale School of Medicine building on 10 Amistad Street in New Haven, Connecticut. In response to a reporter's question of whether there was any indication that Le ran away or did not want to get married, Yale Vice President and Secretary ...

Iran is spending more time investigating the victims of torture and rape behind bars than investigating those who committed such abuses, a human rights group claimed Thursday. Amnesty International has been monitoring reports about the treatment of detainees arrested in the bloody fallout over the Islamic republic's disputed June 12 presidential election. On Thursday, the group called on Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to ensure the safety of the victims and hold the abusers accountable. "The Iranian authorities appear more ...

Manchester United's signing of teenage defender Michele Fornasier could be investigated after the player's former club Fiorentina contacted football's world governing body FIFA about the move. The Italian club are contemplating a formal complaint to FIFA following the departure of the 16-year-old player to the English Premier League outfit in July, though United remain confident of their legal position. It is illegal for players under the age of 18 to sign contracts in Italy, consequently Fornasier was not contracted to ...

A huge cargo ship which disappeared mysteriously for more than two weeks this summer was not secretly carrying advanced Russian missiles, the country's foreign minister said Tuesday. "As for the alleged presence of S-300 systems onboard the dry cargo carrier Arctic Sea, this is an absolute lie," Sergei Lavrov told reporters. The journalists had asked him about media reports that the ship was secretly ferrying the anti-aircraft missiles to perhaps Iran or Syria. Lavrov's comments were reported ...

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has appointed a Canadian officer to lead a formal investigation into a NATO airstrike that killed at least 90 people. Maj. Gen. C.S. Sullivan, who serves as the air component element director and deputy director of joint operations for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, known as ISAF, will lead the probe, an ISAF statement said Tuesday. The panel, which will include a U.S. Air Force officer, a German ...

The SEC internal-investigation report released on Wednesday points a clear finger of blame at the agency, stating that SEC investigators missed multiple opportunities to discover Bernard Madoff's criminal activities. But while the report hammers the SEC for repeated instances of incompetence, it stops well short of declaring the SEC liable. "The OIG [Office of Inspector General] investigation did not find evidence that any SEC personnel who worked on an SEC examination or investigation of Bernard L. Madoff ...