WASHINGTON (AP) - Families claiming that a mercury-based preservative in vaccines triggers autism will challenge mainstream medicine Monday as they take their case to a federal court.

They seek vindication and financial redress from a government fund that helps people injured by shots.

Two 10-year-old boys from Portl...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Increasing numbers of U.S. troops have left the military with damaged bodies and minds, an ever-larger pool of disabled veterans that will cost the nation billions for decades to come _ even as the total population of America's vets shrinks.

Despite the decline in total vets _ as soldiers from World...

SENECA, Mo. (AP) - Stunned survivors picked through the little that was left of their communities Sunday after tornadoes tore across the Plains and South, killing at least 22 people in three states and leaving behind a trail of destruction and stories of loss.

At least 15 people died in southwestern Missouri. In the f...

PHOENIX (AP) - Fifty-three illegal immigrants found Sunday had been held against their will in a fortified home by suspected smugglers demanding more money, authorities said.

The group of rescued immigrants included two 13-year-old girls, three women and a mentally disabled man. The rest were men, Department of Pu...

MALABAR, Fla. (AP) - Brush fires forced residents to flee more than 500 homes in central Florida on Sunday and closed a major interstate, authorities said.

A fire in Volusia County has burned between 500 and 600 acres and caused road closures and home evacuations, state Division of Forestry spokesman Timber Weller said....

WEST SPRINGFIELD, Pa. (AP) - A minivan crossed an interstate median, flipped and was hit by another vehicle in western Pennsylvania, killing six of seven people on board, state police said Sunday.

After the van came to rest, it was hit by an oncoming car, whose driver was treated at a hospital and released shortly after the Int...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) - A medical helicopter dropped off a patient and then crashed shortly after it took off on its return flight to Madison, killing the surgeon, nurse and pilot on board, officials said Sunday.

The University of Wisconsin Hospital Med Flight crew went down about three miles from the La Crosse airport, fr...

HOUSTON (AP) - The bodies of five people, including three young children, were found Saturday afternoon on a sprawling property with several structures in northeast Houston, police said.

A neighbor made the grisly discovery after seeing a man's body on porch next to a .22-caliber rifle, investigators said.

The bod...

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The coyote was limping as it approached a girl in a sand box at a public park _ but it was still dangerous. It snapped its jaws on the girl's buttocks and her nanny had to pry the toddler from the wild animal.

Less than a week later, a coyote in a mountain resort town some 35 miles away grabbed a gi...

(AP) - Four times between the winters of 2002 and 2005, a blue-eyed man wearing a ski mask and dark clothes crept quietly into the bedrooms of women in Bloomington, Ill., and raped them.

He told the women _ all in their 20s and single _ that he'd studied them, tracking their habits. He threatened one woman...