AP - Two young American soldiers in combat gear sit at a small table in a concrete block building, politely but insistently questioning a 66-year-old Afghan actor playing the role of a village elder.

AP - When black SUVs trail school buses around here, no one dismisses it as routine traffic. And when three tough-looking Mexican men pace around the high school gym during a basketball game, no one assumes they're just fans.

AP - In the 1977 cult hit movie 'Slap Shot,' when player/coach Reggie Dunlop learns his minor-league hockey team will fold, he boosts player morale by planting a phony story in the local paper: The Charlestown Chiefs are moving south.

AP - Nine suspects tied to a Christian militia in the Midwest are charged with conspiring to kill police officers, then attack a funeral in the hopes of killing more law enforcement people, federal prosecutors said Monday.

AP - Major transit agencies beefed up security as a precaution Monday following the suicide bombing in Moscow's subway system.

AP - The U.S. Department of Education has picked Delaware and Tennessee to receive part of an unprecedented $4.35 billion to help them improve student performance and transform struggling schools, a source said on Monday.

AP - A Pennsylvania boy who was 11 when he was accused of killing his father's pregnant fiancee with a shotgun blast to the back of her head as she lay in bed will be tried as an adult in the death of both the woman and the fetus, a judge ruled Monday.

AP - U.S. transit agencies are beefing up security as a precaution following the suicide bombing in Moscow's subway system.

AP - A Maryland man who threw a Chihuahua off a bridge has pleaded guilty to animal cruelty and could face prison time.

AP - The U.S. Department of Education on Monday awarded Delaware and Tennessee $600 million as part of the competitive 'Race to the Top' program to help the states improve student performance and transform struggling schools.

AP - Residents along the East Coast braced Monday for days of heavy rain, flooding and the wettest March on record in some areas.

AP - A prominent Jewish leader said Monday he doubts the sincerity of former President Jimmy Carter's recent apology to the Jewish community after Carter said in a speech this month that the U.S. government has 'yielded excessively' to Israel.

AP - Who doesn't want to be a millionaire? Maybe a 43-year-old unemployed bachelor who lives with his elderly mother in Russia — and who won $1 million for solving a problem that has stumped mathematicians for a century.

AP - Health insurance premiums for young adults are expected to rise about 17 percent once they're required to buy insurance four years from now. That estimate is from an analysis by Rand Health.

AP - An initial six-week mission to catch and kill Asian carp lurking on the Great Lakes' doorstep turned up none of the despised fish, suggesting few if any have eluded an electric barrier designed to block their path to Lake Michigan, officials said Monday.

AP - Nine alleged members of a Christian militia group that was girding for battle with the Antichrist were charged Monday with plotting to kill a police officer and slaughter scores more by bombing the funeral — all in hopes of touching off an uprising against the U.S. government.

AP - In a ruling with potentially far-reaching implications for the patenting of human genes, a judge on Monday struck down a company's patents on two genes linked to an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

AP - The Republican National Committee spent $1,946 last month at a sex-themed Hollywood club that features topless dancers and bondage outfits. Now the GOP wants its money back.

AP - Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin had some harsh words for her detractors in the health care debate with a thinly veiled, March Madness-themed Facebook post in which she declared, 'never retreat, instead RELOAD!'

AP - A man who tossed a stranger's Chihuahua off a bridge in a fit of anger faces up to more than four years in prison after pleading guilty Monday to aggravated animal cruelty and theft.

AP - In a ruling with potentially far-reaching implications for the patenting of human genes, a judge on Monday struck down a company's patents on two genes linked to an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

AP - A man who says he was among some 200 deaf boys allegedly molested by a priest in Wisconsin said Monday the Vatican's defensive responses to revelations about the case make him feel like he did when he was 12, when no one would listen to him about the abuse.

AP - With a lecturn flown in from France and his fingers firmly entwined with those of his smiling wife, French President Nicolas Sarkozy made a splash Monday even before he opened his mouth for a no-holds-barred speech at Columbia University.

AP - The arrest of a man dubbed Mexico's 'king of heroin' has disrupted a $10 million-a-month operation that smuggled tons of heroin a year into the United States, authorities said Monday.

AP - A California man was rescued Monday from Mount Shasta, but his climbing partner remained missing and was believed to be trapped near the summit, where stormy conditions restricted search operations.

AP - The pilot of a kit-built single-engine plane that struck and killed a jogger on a South Carolina beach told investigators that he heard a loud bang before the engine failed and he was forced to make an emergency landing, according to a preliminary federal report.