BEIJING – The world’s highest garbage dump is set for a major clean up next year. The operation, part of ongoing efforts to spruce up Mount Everest and protect its fragile Himalayan environment, will involve a garbage collection campaign and a possible limit on the number of climbers and other …

A couple in Sweden is appealing a tax board’s ruling that they must change the name of their 5-month-old daughter, Elvis, because it is “of a masculine type,” Sweden’s The Local reported Wednesday. The infant’s mother told the news site they chose “Elvis” for their daughter because it was both …

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Benazir Bhutto’s party made public Tuesday the will in which she endorsed her husband to succeed her — a move that could polish his leadership credentials ahead of this month’s elections. In the handwritten, one-page letter dated Oct. 16 — two days before her return to Pakistan …

LOS ANGELES – A hilltop house in Los Angeles has cracked in half and a dozen people have been evacuated because of fears it may collapse onto other homes. Evacuees were briefly allowed back into their homes Monday to collect belongings. The house in the San Fernando Valley was unoccupied …

MILWAUKEE – Hundreds of motorists were stranded in a massive traffic pileup on Thursday and classes were canceled for thousands of students as the Midwest dug out from a major snowstorm. Meanwhile, residents in the Great Lakes nervously eyed rising rivers and braced for flooding. In Wisconsin, traffic backed up …

Cardiovascular disease claimed the lives of 460,000 women in the U.S. in 2004, making it the leading cause of death, according to the American Heart Association. Every minute that goes by, another female dies from cardiovascular disease, which encompasses coronary heart disease, stroke, high blood pressure, heart failure, peripheral arterial …

LA PAZ, Bolivia – A plane carrying more than 150 people crash-landed in a bog in eastern Bolivia on Friday after fierce storms turned it away from its destination and it tried to reach another airport hundreds of miles away, according to officials and news reports. All on board survived. …

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. – A student was shot on a sidewalk at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock on Wednesday in what police described as an isolated incident. Authorities did not know the student’s condition Wednesday evening, but said two suspects fled the campus and people at the school …

Charles Lee Thornton was a notorious presence at Kirkwood, Mo., city council meetings long before he opened fire at the latest meeting Thursday night, killing at least five people. Thornton, known as “Cookie,” was arrested and convicted for disorderly conduct after calling city officials “jackasses” and criticizing the city’s “plantation …

WASHINGTON – The leaders of a House panel that oversees military spending said Wednesday they are drafting legislation that would pay for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through the rest of the year. Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, the top Democrat on the committee, predicted the proposal would be …