John Warner passes torch to Mark Warner

By Alex Brandon (AP)

When Anh \"Joseph\" Cao was 8 and Saigon was about to fall, his mother asked if he wanted to take a trip to the beach.

\"I said, \'Mom, we\'re not going to the beach. We\'re going to America,\" Cao recalled recently. \"And she said, \'Yes. Yes, you are going to America.\'\"

On Tuesday, more than 30 years after that refugee child escaped aboard a U.S. military transport plane with his uncle, brother and sister, leaving their parents behind, Cao was sworn in as the first Vietnamese-American to serve in Congress.

The slender 5-foot-2 Republican attorney\'s history-making...

By Bassem Tellawi (AP)

France\'s president sought Syrian help Tuesday to bring a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, while Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice headed to the United Nations for meetings with Arab and European leaders.

The diplomacy drive showed little gains, though, as fighting in Gaza between the militant Palestinian group Hamas and Israeli forces raged for an 11th day, with almost 600 dead.

In the middle of a whirlwind Mideast tour, French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged his hosts in Syria to pressure Hamas to help end the fighting. Syria, along with Iran, is a key backer of Hamas, and...

By (AP)

Pakistani authorities \"must have had\" a hand in the deadly Mumbai siege, India\'s prime minister said Tuesday, stopping just short of directly accusing Islamabad of aiding the gunmen.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh repeated India\'s allegations that the attack was carried out by the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba. But in his most forceful speech since the November attacks, he also said \"there is enough evidence to show that, given the sophistication and military precision of the attack, it must have had the support of some official agencies in Pakistan.\"

The...

By Paul Sancya (AP)

The new spiritual leader of the Detroit area\'s 1.4 million Roman Catholics is a Michigan native who is invoking a city slogan about hope as he takes charge of a region tangled in economic woes.

Bishop Allen H. Vigneron said he was honored and \"absolutely flabbergasted\" when told just a few days before Christmas that he would leave the Oakland, Calif., diocese to become archbishop of Detroit, replacing Cardinal Adam Maida.

Vigneron, 60, wants time to get reacquainted with the area _ \"I\'ve been away six years\" _ but he referred to Michigan\'s problems and the importance...

By Paul Sancya (AP)

Pope Benedict XVI has selected a Michigan native as the new archbishop of Detroit.

Cardinal Adam Maida introduced 60-year-old Allen H. Vigneron (VIG\'-nur-on) at a news conference Monday. Vigneron will lead the Detroit area\'s 1.4 million Roman Catholics beginning Jan. 28.

Vigneron was an auxiliary bishop for the Detroit archdiocese before being named bishop of Oakland, Calif., in 2003. The 60-year-old will replace Maida, who is retiring after nearly two decades as archbishop.

By ANDREW MEDICHINI (AP)

Pope Benedict XVI challenged world leaders on Thursday to make major changes to the global financial system, saying short-term answers to the financial crisis weren\'t sufficient.

\"It\'s not enough, as Jesus said, to put patches on an old suit,\" Benedict said in his New Year\'s Day blessing to thousands of people huddled under umbrellas in a rain-soaked St. Peter\'s Square.

Echoing a similar theme in his New Year\'s Day homily, Benedict said the crisis should be seen as a test-case about the future of globalization.

\"Are we ready to read it in its complexity as a way...

By David Duprey (AP)

Winter storm warnings and plummeting temperatures put a chill on New Year\'s Eve plans for hundreds of thousands of revelers.

Thousands of homes and businesses in the Midwest had no electric lights for the holiday because of wind damage.

Temperatures in the teens _ with wind chills below zero _ were forecast for midnight and the annual ball drop in New York\'s Times Square and for the First Night celebration in Boston, where up to 11 inches of snow was forecast with wind gusting to 45 mph.

However, that was almost mild compared to the upper Midwest, which started the...

By Ian Hardy (AP)

Americans had no problem saying goodbye to 2008 Wednesday, but the nation\'s economic troubles made many of them less interested in giving it an expensive send-off.

Hundreds of thousands of people were still expected to pack a frigid Times Square, and many other New Year\'s Eve traditions around the country were in place, but some festivities fell victim to hard times and those that remained felt somewhat subdued.

Next year \"is going to be tough, the economy on the negative point,\" 30-year-old Anthony Carucci said Wednesday morning as he watched police set up barricades in...

By Ajit Solanki (AP)

When French shoppers start cutting back on buying champagne, oysters and foie gras for New Year\'s, it\'s been a rough year.

As Europe prepared to ring in 2009, many revelers said belt-tightening was their top New Year\'s resolution. The vow followed the most volatile financial year in decades, a time that saw stock markets melt around the world and hundreds of thousands of workers lose their jobs.

Even shoppers in the affluent area west of Paris were scaling back purchases for the traditional New Year\'s Eve feast.

\"We\'re not going to celebrate in a big way _ we\'re...

By Charles Sykes (AP)

President-elect Barack Obama\'s choice of Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation drew one kind of protest. Whether the evangelical pastor offers the prayer in the name of Jesus may draw another.

At George W. Bush\'s 2001 swearing-in, the Revs. Franklin Graham and Kirbyjon Caldwell were criticized for invoking Christ. The distinctly Christian reference at a national civic event offended some, and even prompted a lawsuit.

Warren did not answer directly when asked whether he would dedicate his prayer to Jesus. In a statement Tuesday to The Associated Press, Warren would...

By (AP)

Police on Tuesday cleared out two New Orleans Catholic churches occupied by former parishioners opposed to the archdiocese\'s decision to close them, breaking down a door at one.

Two protesters were arrested and at least two more were issued citations, police said.

\"It\'s our property. It\'s our church. It belongs to the Archdiocese of New Orleans,\" said The Very Rev. Michael Jacques, a member of the archdiocese\'s Council of Deans.

Officers forced open the door at Our Lady of Good Counsel in the city\'s Uptown neighborhood, arresting two people occupying the...

By (AP)

Pakistan says Indian allegations of links between Pakistani state agencies and the Mumbai attacks risk diverting attention from their joint efforts to fight terrorism.

The statement Tuesday by Pakistan\'s information minister did not directly respond to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh\'s charge that Pakistani authorities \"must have had\" a hand in the Mumbai siege.

Sherry Rehman says \"scoring points like this will only move us further away from focussing on the very real and present danger of regional and global terrorism.\"

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back...

By (AP)

Pope Benedict XVI is warning that pollution in the world could destroy our present and our future.

But his message in an Epiphany Day homily Tuesday in St. Peter\'s Basilica in Vatican City is that people should not lose heart in tackling the challenge.

Benedict is encouraging what he calls people\'s efforts to liberate human life and the world from \"poisons and pollution.\" He says even though such efforts against \"hostile forces\" might not seem successful, Christian hope gives courage and guidance.

In his homily the pope also urged people to be hopeful during the...

By (AP)

Evangelist Billy Graham is changing membership from a Dallas church to a friend\'s church in South Carolina.

First Baptist Dallas said Monday the church was told by Graham\'s personal assistant the 90-year-old was switching to First Baptist Church of Spartanburg, S.C. Graham joined First Baptist Dallas in 1953 during his first crusade in the city but has never lived there.

The pastor of First Baptist Spartanburg, the Rev. Don Wilton, has preached for the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

A spokesman for Graham, Larry Ross, told The Herald-Journal of Spartanburg...

By (AP)

Pope Benedict XVI has named a new archbishop for Detroit, Michigan, and made appointments for top Church posts in Canada and California.

The Vatican said Monday that Bishop Allen H. Vigneron will replace Cardinal Adam Joseph Maida at the head of the Detroit archdiocese.

Vigneron, who was born in Michigan, has been Bishop of Oakland, California, since 2003. The Vatican said Maida had resigned after reaching the 75-year-old age limit dictated by canon law.

The pope also named the auxiliary bishop of Halifax, Claude Champagne, as the new bishop of Edmundston in Canada....

By (AP)

Officials say a strong earthquake has hit northeastern Afghanistan, a quake that rattled the capital Kabul for about a minute.

The U.S. Geological Survey says Sunday\'s quake had a preliminary magnitude of 6.2 and was located in the northeastern province of Badakhshan in the Hindu Kush mountains. The area is often hit by earthquakes but is sparsely populated.

A Badakhshan police official, Fazel Ahmad Naderi, says the quake was strong but noted that his cell phone still worked, meaning that towers had not been toppled. The quake hit about 12:50 a.m. local time and Naderi says...

By (AP)

The Catholic archbishop of Vancouver announced Friday he was retiring because of an ongoing battle with depression.

Archbishop Raymond Roussin, 69, said the ailment forced him to reassess his work.

\"I believe my call is from God and to be a bishop, to be a pastor. I was unable to do it,\" Roussin said in an interview with Canadian Press, adding that he has suffered from depression for several years.

The Vatican said Pope Benedict XVI has agreed to the retirement of Roussin, who is stepping down more than five years earlier than the normal retirement...

By (AP)

Paul Hofmann, an Austrian who informed on his Nazi commanders in occupied Rome and later became a New York Times correspondent and author, has died, the newspaper reported Thursday. He was 96.

Hofmann died in Rome on Tuesday, the Times quoted his son, Alexander Hofmann-Lord, as saying.

An ardent opponent of Nazism, Hofmann fled his native Vienna for Rome after German troops occupied his homeland. He was eventually drafted into the German Army and posted to Rome, where he worked as the personal interpreter for two successive Nazi commanders, Gen. Rainer Stahel and Gen. Kurt...

By (AP)

Authorities say a Roman Catholic priest in northern Virginia was killed by a falling tree while trying to clear another fallen tree from a road during windy weather.

The Loudoun (LOW-duhn) County Sheriff\'s Office says the Rev. Michael C. Kelly got out of his car Wednesday to try moving a tree and another motorist stopped to help.

A second tree then fell, striking and killing the 53-year-old priest.

Kelly was the pastor at St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in Purcellville, about 40 miles west of Washington.

Wintry weather and high winds have knocked down trees...

By (AP)

In a Dec. 29 story about evangelist Billy Graham changing his church membership, The Associated Press erroneously reported the location of Graham\'s retirement home. The retirement home is in Montreat, North Carolina, not South Carolina.