MIAMI (Reuters) - Amnesty International urged the United States on Thursday to abandon plans to try Guantanamo prisoners before military tribunals and asked other nations not to contribute any evidence for use at the trials.

BOSTON (Reuters) - The Boston Globe's newsroom will shrink by 6 percent after 24 journalists, including two Pulitzer Prize winners, agreed to voluntary buyouts, New England's largest-circulation newspaper said on Wednesday.

AP - A man accused of killing a teenage student over an affair with his teacher wife says he knew 'for a long time' she was having an affair, but refused to believe it.

CINCINNATI (Reuters) - Since January, Patricia Roberts has had access to something that many of the poorest people in the United States can only dream of: a pharmacy in her neighborhood.

SALMON, Idaho (Reuters) - Tyler Youderian had no intimation of disaster on a recent Sunday when he steered his snowmobile up Lionhead Mountain overlooking Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

AP - Don't underestimate the grocery store deli worker, the security alarm salesman or the 34-year-old computer science student who anchor the Miami Dade College chess team. The community college undergrads have already faced Yale, Harvard, Dartmouth, Northwestern and beaten them all.

AP - Manuel S. Pablo crouched in foxholes to defend the Philippines against invading Japanese soldiers in World War II. He says he watched a Japanese guard stab one of his comrades to death with a bayonet during the Bataan Death March when the starving prisoner of war asked for another bowl of rice.

AP - When a prominent lawyer was defending a businessman on charges of sexually assaulting a boy and possessing child pornography, he used a ruse to obtain the boy's computer to aid his case.

AP - Chicago is as known for its patronage as it is for its skyline. But city officials and an attorney who has fought political hiring at City Hall for nearly 40 years say a preliminary $12 million settlement Wednesday could bring an end to the practice.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits unexpectedly fell 4,000 last week to its lowest in six weeks, government data showed on Thursday in a report underscoring a healthy labor market.

CINCINNATI (Reuters) - Until last year, financial counselors at the Home Ownership Center of Greater Cincinnati spent most of their time teaching Americans how to buy a first home. Now, they're deluged by broken and bereft homeowners facing foreclosure.

AP - A man accused of gunning down a teenager over an affair with his teacher wife admitted to the shooting in a jailhouse interview aired Thursday but said it was an accident.

AP - Milton Wexler, a prominent Hollywood psychoanalyst whose efforts to find a cure for the disease that killed his wife led scientists to pinpoint the Huntington's gene, has died. He was 98.

AP - A judge urged the ousted founder of the Minuteman Project to resolve his power struggle with the anti-illegal immigration group's board of directors out of court, but he indicated he would issue a ruling if necessary.

MIAMI (Reuters) - A former U.S. astronaut who drove 950 miles to confront the girlfriend of her ex-lover pleaded not guilty on Thursday to attempted kidnap and battery charges.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - News Corp. and NBC Universal said on Thursday they will jointly launch an online video site this summer, in a move to compete directly with Google Inc.'s popular YouTube.

MIAMI (Reuters) - Tony La Russa, manager of World Series champs the St. Louis Cardinals, was arrested on a drunken driving charge in Florida on Thursday when he was found sleeping behind the wheel of a vehicle at a traffic light, police said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. federal court ruled on Thursday that a 1998 law designed to block children from viewing Internet pornography violates the U.S. Constitution's free speech protections.

DETROIT (Reuters) - Hit by a slump in the American auto industry, Detroit and its suburbs lost more residents in the past six years than any comparable U.S. area except hurricane-battered New Orleans, census data released on Thursday showed.

STAR CITY, Russia (Reuters) - Former Microsoft software guru Charles Simonyi said on Thursday he was more nervous about public appearances than blasting off for a trip to the International Space Station aboard a Russian rocket.

AP - The state school board voted Thursday to strip the accreditation from the St. Louis school district and shift control of the district to a state-run board.

AP - Federal prosecutors took the first steps toward reducing the prison sentence of former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, currently scheduled for release in 2011 for a Florida fraud conviction.

AP - Former astronaut Lisa Nowak's attorneys formally entered a not guilty plea Thursday to charges that she tried to kidnap a rival for a space shuttle pilot's affections.

AP - Two patients have killed themselves at the state's mental hospital in the past two months after more than a year without a suicide, and officials say a severe staff shortage is eroding care.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Chlorine bombs in Iraq have raised concern that lax security at U.S. chemical plants could make the country, and particularly New York City, vulnerable to similar attacks.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More people than ever got cosmetic plastic surgery in the United States in 2006, with breast enlargements the most popular procedure, the American Society of Plastic Surgeons reported on Thursday.

AP - The state school board voted Thursday to strip the accreditation from the St. Louis school district and take control of its struggling schools.

AP - Sometime between the founding of a student-run porn magazine and the day the campus health center advertised 'Free Lube,' Harvard University seniors Sarah Kinsella and Justin Murray decided to fight back against what they see as too much mindless sex at the Ivy League school.

AP - As a top engineer at a major U.S. defense contractor, Chi Mak helped develop some of the most advanced and closely guarded naval technology in the world, including silent-running propulsion systems that can make submarines virtually undetectable.

AP - Celebrity chef Wolfgang Puck is cooking up kinder, gentler menus.

AP - Andrew Anthos had many passions in life, including old movies, legendary Hollywood screen sirens and a 20-year campaign to illuminate the state Capitol dome in red, white and blue one night a year. While he never hid that he was gay, he was no gay rights activist.

AP - The city of Hazleton tried to 'scapegoat and demonize illegal immigrants,' blaming them for crime, overburdened schools and other problems, an ACLU lawyer said Thursday at the close of a federal trial over the town's illegal-immigration crackdown.

AP - A cemetery exhumed two more bodies from waterlogged graves as state authorities investigate complaints that money paid for crypts, caskets and markers has disappeared from a cemetery trust account.

AP - Grizzly bears are thriving in and around Yellowstone National Park and no longer need the protection of the Endangered Species Act, the federal government said Thursday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday it intends to file a lawsuit against student lender Education Finance Partners, the first legal action arising from the state's probe into the college loan industry.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Three brazen New Jersey shoplifters made off with nearly $12,000 in women's underwear by stuffing the goods into bags designed to foil anti-theft equipment at a Victoria's Secret store while the shop was open for business, police said.

AP - The state school board voted Thursday to strip the accreditation from the St. Louis school district and take control of its struggling schools.

AP - The city of Hazleton tried to 'scapegoat and demonize illegal immigrants,' blaming them for crime, overburdened schools and other problems, an ACLU lawyer said Thursday at the close of a federal trial over the town's illegal-immigration crackdown.

AP - Grizzly bears in and around Yellowstone National Park no longer need Endangered Species Act protection, the federal government said Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States risks losing its global technology edge because tighter visa rules since 2001 have made it too hard for foreigners to visit, U.S. business and educational groups said on Thursday.

TORONTO (Reuters) - Menu Foods Income Fund faces lawsuits in Canada and the United States over its pet food recall, but the company said on Thursday it still doesn't know what went wrong.

AP - Guidelines issued by U.S. attorneys in Texas showed that most illegal immigrants crossing into the state had to be arrested at least six times before federal authorities would prosecute them, according to an internal Justice Department memo.

AP - A group of coin experts warned collectors Thursday that some George Washington dollar coins have been altered to look like ones that mistakenly left the U.S. Mint without 'In God We Trust' on the edges.

AP - Abortion opponents filed an ethics complaint Thursday against a judge who dismissed 30 misdemeanor criminal charges against one of the few U.S. doctors to perform late-term abortions.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A federal judge in Mississippi once again denied a request for class action status to a coastal Mississippi woman who lost her home in Hurricane Katrina.

AP - Dorie-Ann Kahale and her five daughters moved from a homeless shelter to a mansion Thursday, courtesy of a Japanese real estate mogul who is handing over eight of his multimillion-dollar homes to low-income Native Hawaiian families.

AP - For months, former New York Post scribe Jared Paul Stern was at the center of unseemly accusations that he tried to shake down billionaire Ronald Burkle in exchange for good press in the newspaper's gossip pages.

AP - Authorities are investigating whether anyone tried to bribe or threaten a bartender to dissuade her from pressing charges against an off-duty police officer accused of beating her, police said Thursday.

AP - A 6-year-old boy who police say was sexually abused, choked to death and dumped by the side of a road in black plastic trash bags was mourned at a closed-casket funeral Thursday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A new English-language interpretation of the Muslim Holy book the Koran challenges the use of words that feminists say have been used to justify the abuse of Islamic women.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - California coastal regulators and environmentalists sued the U.S. Navy on Thursday saying that it has planned training exercises that could endanger whales.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The nation's first low-cost housing development aimed specifically at gay, lesbian and transgender retirees opened its doors in Hollywood on Thursday with a promise to provide a dignified haven for elderly homosexuals to live out their days.

AP - A pipe kicked up by another car broke through a driver's windshield and pierced the woman's face and neck, officials said.

AP - The body of an 8-year-old boy who was on a boat with his grandfather and uncle when it went over a spillway was recovered Thursday from a creek, authorities said.