LOS ANGELES – Lights, camera, action — but first, here come the writers. Members of the Writers Guild of America were planning a return to work Wednesday after voting to end their strike on its 100th day, thus allowing Hollywood to jump-start stalled production of numerous TV sitcoms and dramas. …

A surgeon in California is accused of prescribing excessive drugs to a disabled and brain-damaged man to hasten his death and retrieve his organs, The New York Times reports. Ruben Navarro, 25, already was near death by most accounts. But law enforcement officials in San Luis Obispo, Calif., say Dr. …

WASHINGTON – For the first time in his seven years in office, President Bush will have a South Korean counterpart with similar views on North Korean nuclear disarmament when Lee Myung-bak is inaugurated Monday. It may already be too late for them to move forward on an agreement to rid …

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka – A bomb tore through a packed bus carrying civilians Saturday in central Sri Lanka, killing 20 people and wounding 50 others, the military said. The blast inside the bus occurred at 7:05 a.m. in Dambulla town, about 150 kilometers (90 miles) northeast of the capital, Colombo, …

GRANTSDALE, Mont. – David Dahl is suffering from a tumor so rare that only 18 other people in the world have it the Ravalli Republic reported. Dahl has cavernous hemangioma, a tumor that is 35 millimeters in length in his chest cavity. The tumor has wrapped itself around his esophagus, …

WASHINGTON – An American held in Iraq by the U.S. military has had his conviction and death sentence overturned by an Iraqi court, the man’s American lawyer said Friday. Iraqi-born Mohammad Munaf, a naturalized U.S. citizen since 2000, has been held by the U.S. military since May 2005. He was …

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – The Hamas prime minister called publicly Wednesday for a period of calm with Israel, laying out conditions that would end attacks on Palestinian militants, open Gaza’s borders and lift economic sanctions. But shortly after the appeal by Ismail Haniyeh, Israeli troops opened fire on a …

BOLINGBROOK, Ill. – After a winter hiatus, more than 50 volunteers resumed their ground search Saturday for a suburban Chicago mother who went missing last fall. Searchers gathered in Bolingbrook, where Stacy Peterson was last seen in late October. “Right now we’re looking for a body,” said Cassandra Cales, Peterson’s …

CAMDEN, N.J. – A man who admitted letting a group of accused terror-plotters shoot his guns at a firing range was sentenced to 20 months in prison on Monday. U.S. District Judge Robert Kugler said Agron Abdullahu deserved more than the 10 to 16 months that sentencing guidelines call for …

MEXICO CITY – When Manuel Uribe went out on a date, he made all the necessary arrangements: a forklift to carry him out of the house and a flatbed tow truck big enough to haul the formerly half-ton man and his bed to a party. But even the open road …