Former President Clinton says if Democrats want someone to dump on John McCain, he's not the guy.

Anthrax mailing suspect Bruce E. Ivins' access to Army biodefense laboratories was revoked in March after he spilled anthrax on his pants and went home to wash them instead of immediately reporting the accident, according to an Army report.

The Bush administration's $700 billion plan to bail out the financial industry is "extremely faulty," Former President Jimmy Carter said at a Tuesday night town hall-style meeting.

A commuter train struck and killed a pedestrian Wednesday morning in Los Angeles.

Families of illegal immigrants in Arizona are increasingly being targeted by an extortion scam in which criminals falsely claim to have kidnapped their loved ones as the immigrants tried to sneak across the U.S. border with Mexico. The culprits behind so-called "virtual kidnappings" typically strike when illegal immigrants make the three- to four-day journey through the remote desert, where they are cut off from communicating with family members. Relatives are told to cough up thousands of dollars or their loved ones will be maimed or killed. "It's just an extension of what happens in Mexico," said Armando Garcia, assistant special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Arizona, where the trend first appeared five years ago and has escalated to an average of one case being reported each week. Investigators believe virtual kidnappers get the names and phone numbers of immigrants' families either by buying them from smugglers or by posing as helpers who can connect illegal immigrants with smugglers in Mexican border towns. One family paid $7,000 before calling authorities about the scam. Once a ransom is paid, the criminals will often ask for more money and sometimes even demand that families cover the cost of the kidnapper's cell phone. The kidnappers are convincing. They speak good English and use cell phones with a Phoenix area code so it looks like they are in the Arizona capital, even though they are probably making the calls from Mexico, where the extortion money is often sent. Virtual abductions have also been reported in San Diego, where immigration agents investigate two to three each year, said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for that city's office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. It's not hard to trick families into believing an actual kidnapping has happened. Relatives of illegal immigrants know that human trafficking is a violent business in which customers who have already paid their smuggling fees are sometimes held captive while smugglers try to squeeze more money out of friends and family. Immigrants aren't the only ones risking abduction. Since the beginning of 2007, Phoenix has had more than 560 kidnappings in which drug and immigrant traffickers, and their families, have been abducted by fellow criminals and held for ransom. Immigration agents are stumped about why Arizona is seeing an increase in virtual kidnappings, and they believe the number of cases is probably higher because some cases go unreported. Immigrants and their families don't want to risk being deported, or they are embarrassed about getting ripped off. Virtual kidnappings also drain law enforcement resources because investigators have to assume that the ransom calls are valid. A telltale sign of virtual kidnappings is an unwillingness of the scammers to put the supposed abduction victim on the phone. Smugglers who are really holding someone hostage will often let family members speak to the relative. Immigration agents recommend being skeptical of ransom demands if the caller does not allow relatives to speak with family members who are supposedly being held captive. In one case, a woman who got a call that her ex-husband was kidnapped called the scammers' bluff, saying she didn't want to speak with them if she couldn't speak with him. The criminals started calling the man's girlfriend. Virtual kidnappers will eventually change phones and move on to the next victim if they can't extort money from a family. "Maybe it's working with 10 out of 100 people that they call," said Garcia, the Arizona immigration agent.

A federal appeals court says it was constitutional for the United States to require visitors from two dozen Arab and Muslim countries and North Korea to register with immigration authorities.

After acclaimed character dramas ("Malcolm X," "Do the Right Thing"), some ill-fated comedies ("Bamboozled," "She Hate Me") and even a documentary or two ("4 Little Girls"), Lee takes on a big, old-fashioned war picture.

Let the debates begin: VH1 has compiled its list of the 100 greatest hip-hop songs, and Public Enemy's black power anthem "Fight the Power" tops the list.

First Bari Martz's fingers turned blue. Then she started gasping for breath, and her joints stiffened so that she couldn't even open her hands. Doctors diagnosed scleroderma, part of an insidious family of diseases where the immune system attacks a patient's own body, sometimes enough to kill.

Federal officials on Tuesday launched a crackdown against several companies that market an eye wash and a widely used skin cream without government approval, saying these prescription medications could pose risks.

Inhaler drugs used by millions of people with emphysema and bronchitis may slightly raise the risk for heart attacks and even death, a study suggests.

Far too few Americans get their flu shots each winter, the government is warning as it calls for a record number to line up for inoculations this year — including 30 million more school-age children.

A regulatory group told hospitals Wednesday to adopt strict measures to prevent errors involving blood thinners including heparin — mistakes that have been made nearly 60,000 times and led to dozens of deaths in recent years.

The 5 percent increase was comparable to last year's uptick. Overall, premiums for family coverage increased to $12,680 and premiums for single coverage increased to $4,704, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust

The Bush administration's $700 billion plan to bail out the financial industry is "extremely faulty," Former President Jimmy Carter said at a Tuesday night town hall-style meeting.

One by one, jurors in the O.J. Simpson trial are meeting the men who were in the casino hotel room where the former football star is accused of orchestrating the robbery of two sports memorabilia dealers at gunpoint.

Slow going at luxury hotels in Bangkok.

- Connecticut and 12 other states are protesting a proposed Bush administration rule that would give stronger job protections to doctors and other health care workers who refuse to participate in abortions because of religious or moral objections.

As fares and fees rise and services are reduced, carriers struggle with poor customer grades.

Thousands of people returned on Wednesday for the first time since their island city was blasted by Hurricane Ike nearly two weeks ago, choosing home over warnings that Galveston is "broken" and infested with germs and snakes.

Brett Favre plans to work through his injured left ankle, but was uncertain Wednesday how limited he'd be during practice as he prepares to play in the New York Jets' next game against Arizona.

The World Series champion Boston Red Sox are back in the playoffs, thanks to a 5-4 victory over the Cleveland Indians on Tuesday night that clinched at least a wild-card berth.

Agency says health risks are low, critics say EPA is protecting the Pentagon from liability.

Clay Aiken appears on the cover of the latest People magazine holding his infant son, Parker Foster Aiken, with the headline: "Yes, I'm Gay."

Health insurance premiums rose a modest 5 percent this year for coverage that's getting skimpier, researchers say.