After five weeks of battle, Syrian government troops captured a strategic town near Damascus, cutting an arms route for rebels trying to topple President Bashar Assad's regime, state media and activists said Thursday.

World stocks were mostly higher Thursday as a slump in orders for U.S. durable goods and other data convinced investors that central banks would continue efforts to help the global economic recovery.

After weeks of threatening rhetoric from the North, South Korea on Thursday promised its own unspecified "grave measures" if Pyongyang rejects talks on a jointly run factory park shuttered for nearly a month.

Of three ricin-laced letters mailed this month to public officials, only one made it into the hands of an intended target, 80-year-old Mississippi judge Sadie Holland.

The German government is raising slightly its forecast for growth this year, though it still expects Europe's biggest economy to expand by only 0.5 percent.

China's state news agency says one person died and 20 others were sickened after a chef mistakenly added pesticide instead of a sauce as he was making lunch.

Oscar Pistorius' older brother Carl is back in court in South Africa for his culpable homicide trial, where he is charged with driving negligently and causing the death of a woman motorcyclist in a collision in 2008.

Germany's finance minister is insisting that Europe can't spend its way out of its economic problems - digging in against mounting criticism of the continent's austerity drive.

This year's NFL draft is heavy on size and light on glamour.

The George W. Bush Presidential Center, which houses Bush's library and museum along with his policy institute, will be dedicated in a ceremony Thursday on the campus of Southern Methodist University. Here are some facts on the center:

First the Republican-led House approved a federal budget that's heavy on spending cuts. Then the Democratic-controlled Senate approved one that leans more toward tax increases. Then at last, President Barack Obama put out his own budget plan, two months late, coming down someplace in between.

Liberals' loud objections to White House proposals for slowing the growth of huge social programs make it clear that neither political party puts a high priority on reducing the deficit, despite much talk to the contrary.

President Barack Obama, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn and Texas Gov. Rick Perry are to speak at a memorial to victims killed in a Central Texas fertilizer plant blast.

Mornings are the hardest for Adrianne Haslet because the 32-year-old professional ballroom dancer forgets at first that her left foot is gone.

On April 17, a massive explosion at a fertilizer plant in West, Texas, leveled part of that small town located some 20 miles north of Waco. Most of the victims were first responders from fire departments in West and other nearby towns that were on the scene trying to control the fire that preceded the blast.

For 40 years, Shirley Moss has lived in the same home in a tiny southeast Missouri town, but as the sandbags piled up yet again, she didn't hesitate when asked if she would take a government buyout.

Presidential campaigns are long in the making, quick to be forgotten. But one part of them lives on for years: the victor's promises.

A movie review of “Mud,” Jeff Nichols’ latest drama, starring Matthew McConaughey as a fugitive helped by two boys to make an escape with his longtime love (Reese Witherspoon).

The issue:

The Mariners are 8-15 and once again looked just plain flat and disinterested at times.