DALLAS – Michael Irvin says he has been suspended by ESPN for one week for not telling the network about his arrest last week, when police found a drug pipe hidden in his car during a traffic stop. Irvin, who has maintained that the pipe belonged to a friend, told …

BEIJING – A coal mine blast in northern China killed at least 74 workers in the third such disaster in the perilous industry in recent weeks, the government said Thursday. The explosion Wednesday at the privately run Liuguantun Colliery in Tangshan, a city in Hebei province, occurred when 188 miners …

LOS ANGELES – A black family learns what it’s like to be white while a white family becomes black in the six-part documentary series “Black.White,” scheduled for broadcast on the FX cable network in March. Makeup temporarily transforms the two families for the series developed by filmmaker R.J. Cutler and …

BOSTON – Investigators were searching for suspects in the city’s bloodiest crime in a decade after four men were fatally shot in a basement that neighbors said had been set up as a music studio. Three men were found dead at the house and the fourth died at a hospital, …

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. – A new town has sprouted on this military base, with businesses, a well-stocked library, even its own airport passenger terminal. It’s part of a new school the military hopes will help bomb squad leaders detect and disarm the deadly improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, …

NEW YORK – Cablevision Systems Corp. (CVC), a Long Island-based cable TV company, on Monday said it would cancel a special $3 billion dividend after finding it had violated the terms of its bank borrowing agreement. The company also said it would cancel a recently announced $1 billion bond offering. …

NEW YORK – The National Security Agency’s Internet site has been placing files on visitors’ computers that can track their Web surfing activity despite strict federal rules banning most of them. These files, known as “cookies,” disappeared after a privacy activist complained and The Associated Press made inquiries this week, …

WARSAW, Poland – Poland’s president on Thursday approved extending the country’s military mission in Iraq for another year, the prime minister said. “The issue is closed and taken care of,” Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz told all-news station TVN24 during a skiing trip at the Polish mountain resort of Zakopane. Marcinkiewicz’s …

The following is the text of a letter House Majority Leader Tom DeLay wrote to NBC about an episode of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” in which his name was mentioned. May 26, 2005 Jeff Zucker President NBC Universal Television Group 30 Rockefeller Plaza New York, NY 10012 Dear Mr. …

TAMPA, Fla. – Ten years ago, American student Alisa Flatow boarded a bus headed to a Gaza Strip beach resort for a much needed break from her studies. At the Israeli settlement of Kfar Darom, a young man sat in a van loaded with explosives. As the bus approached, he …