A fresh US-led diplomatic effort was under way yesterday to rescue Israeli-Palestinian negotiations as construction resumed in some Jewish West Bank settlements after Israel's decision to end a 10-month moratorium on building.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas effectively gave US mediators at least a week to resolve the crisis by confirming that he would hold a series of consultations, culminating in an Arab League meeting called for next Monday, before deciding whether to pull out of the negotiations.



Portable devices with painless laser beams could soon replace X-rays as a non-invasive way to diagnose disease. Researchers say that the technique could become widely available in about five years. The method, called Raman spectroscopy, could help spot the early signs of breast cancer, tooth decay and osteoporosis.
Ten years ago, after long and bitter debate, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved use of the abortion pill by American women. It is hailed as safe and effective, but new turmoil may lie ahead as the pill's proponents consider using telemedicine to make it more available.
A long-delayed government epidemiological study of possible ties between diesel exhaust and lung cancer in miners may finally be published this fall -- but only after a mining industry group, represented by the Washington lobbying powerhouse Patton Boggs, finishes a pre-publication review of the study's drafts.
Dressed in a t-shirt and Army shorts, a 22-year-old corporal from Wasilla, Alaska casually describes on a video tape made by military investigators how his unit's "crazy" sergeant randomly chose three unarmed, innocent victims to be murdered in Afghanistan.
Cancer patients, brace yourselves. Many new drug treatments cost nearly $100,000 a year, sparking fresh debate about how much a few months more of life is worth.
After months of denial, heads of pro-Israel, pro-peace US Jewish organization compelled to admit George Soros contributed to its establishment.
A private company in Maryland has taken over public libraries in ailing cities in California, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas, growing into the country’s fifth-largest library system. Now the company, Library Systems & Services, has been hired for the first time to run a system in a relatively healthy city, setting off an intense and often acrimonious debate about the role of outsourcing in a ravaged economy.





























