He's already served the time, but lawyers Thursday argued to clear his name as onetime U.S. Army Sgt. Michael Smith appeals a conviction for the torture of detainees once held at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Disturbing snapshots and video portraying sexual humiliation and physical intimidation against the detainees tarnished the image of the United States as it fought to stabilize Iraq after the American overthrow of Saddam Hussein. A military panel found Smith guilty in March ...

Support for abortion rights has fallen sharply in the past year, with Americans now split roughly 50-50 between those who back legal access to abortion and those who oppose it, according to a new survey. The findings mark a dramatic shift in public opinion, supporters of abortion rights have outnumbered opponents for many years, with one brief exception, studies have shown. But only 47 percent of Americans now feel abortion should be legal in all or most cases, a drop ...

A huge water main burst under a road in the suburban Baltimore community of Dundalk, Maryland, Friday, sending muddy water erupting over neighborhood streets and down highway ramps, officials said. The 72-inch main was shut about two hours after it ruptured, Baltimore County Chief Executive Jim Smith told CNN. No injuries were reported, Smith said, but he urged residents to "shelter in place" and not to go into the knee- to chest-high water under any circumstances. "This is ...

A campaigner for a British grandmother on death row in Texas made a unique plea for her life Thursday -- from atop a plinth in London's Trafalgar Square. Linda Carty, 51, recorded the message this week from the prison in Gatesville, where she is serving her sentence. A man stood on the plinth and played Carty's message aloud while standing in front of her picture. "Linda Carty's speech to Trafalgar Square shows that she is a terrified woman, and with ...

Services for Sen. Edward Kennedy will be Saturday morning at a Boston church before his burial in Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington, his office announced Wednesday. President Obama, who called Kennedy an "extraordinary leader," will deliver a eulogy at the funeral, according to several sources. Kennedy died Tuesday night at his home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, after being ill for 15 months with brain cancer. He was 77. Obama, on vacation at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, said Wednesday that Americans knew ...

The U.S. military will stop publishing the number of Taliban and insurgents it kills in Afghanistan under orders from the senior U.S. military spokesman for the American-led coalition. Rear Adm. Gregory Smith ordered the change as part of the new military strategy in the war that focuses on protecting Afghan citizens rather than killing militants. "Indicating the number of insurgents killed has little relevance to impacting the lives of Afghans. In fact, if that were the only purpose and metric, ...

Police wonder whether a photograph found in a prison cell a decade ago might lead to the bodies of two children who disappeared and are believed to have been murdered. Karen and Michael Reinert, who lived with their divorced mother in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, were 11 and 10 when their mother was murdered and they vanished in June 1979. A former high school English teacher was convicted in the murders of Susan Reinert and her children. But the children have ...

Thirty years ago, a neighbor peered out her window on a Friday evening in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, and watched Karen and Michael Reinert gather hailstones. Their mother, Susan, called from the front porch of her modest home on Woodcrest Avenue and bundled the children into her orange Plymouth Horizon hatchback. It was just after 9 p.m. Karen, 11, wore a small green pin with the letter P on her blouse, a souvenir from a class trip to the Philadelphia Museum of ...

Alana "Laney" Gwinner, a 23-year-old accounting student at the University of Cincinnati, had a lot to celebrate Tuesday, December 9, 1997. She had just aced an exam and received a promotion at work. So, that night, Gwinner and friends met up about 10 p.m. at a bowling alley in nearby Fairfield, Ohio. After midnight, Gwinner left to drive to her boyfriend's house, about 2 miles up the road. She never made it. Her boyfriend and relatives soon went to the ...

Rescuers have saved more than 50 whales and five dolphins that stranded themselves on a beach in Tasmania, officials said Monday. Oakland Raiders linebacker Marquis Cooper and NFL free agent Corey Smith, who played for the Detroit Lions for the past three seasons, have not returned from a Saturday fishing trip in water off Clearwater, Florida, family members and colleagues said Sunday. "It feels like my greatest fear coming true -- it doesn't feel real," Cooper's wife, Rebekah, told CNN ...