MONTROSE, Calif. (AP) -- Before donning the Santa Claus suit that would disarm his first victim, Bruce Pardo spent months plotting his Christmas Eve massacre behind a mask of friendliness that fooled his neighbors, lawyer and the ex-wife he killed along with eight of her kin....

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- A Missouri woman convicted of cyber-bullying a teenage girl will not face a felony conspiracy charge, court records show.

LONDON, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- Britain plans to accept foreign terror suspects from Guantanamo Bay so Barack Obama can close it when he becomes U.S. president, The Times of London says.

KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- Conflicting reports surround the deaths of 20 Afghan National Police officers shot outside the home of an Afghan government leader, officials said Thursday.

DETROIT, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- Detroit police say citizen cooperation last year may have played a role in the city marking its lowest number of homicides since 1967.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- The scope of a recovery plan for the punk U.S. economy will be discussed by President-elect Barack Obama and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, party officials said.

PHOENIX, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- Barry Goldwater, the late senator from Arizona who shaped the conservative movement, was remembered Thursday on the 100th anniversary of his birth.

MIAMI, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- A student trekking through the Florida Everglades with several other medical school students fell ill and has been airlifted to safety, officials say.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- At least 60,000 people have applied to be volunteers during the days of activities surrounding the inauguration of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin says her future son-in-law, Levi Johnston, is not a high school dropout despite recent reports to the contrary.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- Rocky Williams, a former oil company employee who was sent back to Alaska without testifying at Sen. Ted Stevens' Washington trial, has died.

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- Israel's airstrikes on Gaza have exposed the rift between Palestinians who want to make peace with Israel and those who support Hamas, observers said.

CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Somali pirates seized an Egyptian cargo ship and its 28 crewmembers on Thursday while a Malaysian military helicopter saved an Indian tanker from being hijacked in the new year's first attacks by pirates in the dangerous Gulf of Aden. Fifteen armed pirates snatched the Egyptian vessel, called Blue Star, after the ship exited the Red Sea and entered the gulf, carrying a cargo of 6,000 tons of fertilizer, according to Egyptian Deputy Foreign minister, Ahmed Rizq....

WASHINGTON, Jan. 1 (UPI) -- A new set of sentencing guidelines for crack possession or sales in the United States has prompted a deluge of courtroom battles, attorneys say.

News from United Press International, around the world around the clock ...

North Korea ushered in 2009 with an appeal Thursday to unite around leader Kim Jong Il and bolster the country's military, while reaffirming its commitment to denuclearization and breaking with tradition by not criticizing the U.S.

Two Pakistani intelligence officials say a suspected U.S. missile strike has killed at least three people in northwest Pakistan.

General Motors Corp. may be well on the way to keeping its New Years' resolution to restructure with the arrival Wednesday night of the first tranche of $9.4 billion in low-cost loans from the U.S. Treasury.

A Florida mother is awaiting word from Cuba after her son and his girlfriend accidentally ended up on the island while boating in rough waters.

U.S. military deaths in Iraq plunged by two-thirds in 2008 from the previous year, a reflection of the improving security following the U.S. military's counterinsurgency campaign and Al Qaeda's slow retreat from the battlefield.