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Scattered street demonstrations popped up around Brazil Wednesday as protesters continued their collective cry against the low-quality public services they receive in exchange for high taxes and rising prices.In one of several protests, about 200 people blocked the Anchieta Highway that links Sao Paulo, the country's biggest city, and the port of Santos before heading to the industrial suburb of S...    

Serena Williams says she's reaching out to the family of the victim in the Steubenville rape case after the tennis star was quoted in a Rolling Stone article saying "she shouldn't have put herself in that position.""I am currently reaching out to the girl's family to let her know that I am deeply sorry for what was written in the Rolling Stone article," Williams said in a statement released throug...    

In little more than a month, Tiger Woods went from being tough to beat to having a tough time even playing.Woods said Wednesday that soreness in his left elbow would keep him from defending his title next week in the AT&T National at Congressional, and that he would not compete again until the British Open next month at Muirfield.This is the sixth straight year that injury has kept him from ei...    

In the madness of the wild and turbulent final 17 minutes -- as this NBA Finals took off and soared past Spinal Tap’s 11 -- the words of San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich echoed. “It’s a game of mistakes,” he had said when asked to sum up all he has learned about professional basketball. In some ways, all sports at the highest level are more about mistakes than triumphs. But it’s especially t...    

Three male Naval Academy midshipmen have been charged with allegedly sexually assaulting a female midshipman last year and with making a false official statement.The woman told investigators that she was assaulted by the men — all Academy football players at the time — at an off-campus party in April 2012. On Wednesday, the academy announced the accused men were charged with making a false officia...    

Nine 7-Eleven store owners and managers who authorities say ran a “modern-day plantation system,” employing dozens of immigrant workers at New York and Virginia convenience stores, were just one thread in a vast human trafficking and forced labor web that stretches around the world and into American homes.Investigators filed indictments earlier this week against the eight men and one woman who wer...    

Stocks accelerated their selloff in the final hour of trading on Wednesday to close over 200 points lower, after the Federal Reserve said it will maintain its bond-buying program, although Chairman Ben Bernanke hinted that the FOMC plans to moderate purchases later this year. "They don't tie themselves officially into anything but it's clearly what they're going to do," said Jim Paulsen, ch...    

The new MERS virus, which has infected 64 people and killed 38 of them, is mostly spread in hospitals and it will take special care to prevent bigger outbreaks, experts reported on Wednesday.An investigation into the outbreak in Saudi Arabia showed 21 people were infected as patients who unknowingly went from one clinic to another, spreading the virus. It can spread quickly in the hospital if stri...    

In this month’s issue of Vogue, Katy Perry reveals how she learned that her marriage to Russell Brand was over: via text message. That’s cold, but she's in good company, at least among these painfully awkward pop culture splits. Real or fictional, these breakups left us cringing.Carrie and Berger, 'Sex and the City'In one of the most famously embarrassing breakups in TV history, Berger (Ron Living...    

Until recently, the only crime that Cap’N Crunch could be accused of was cutting up the roofs of our mouths, despite his cereal’s delicious sweet corn taste. Now, an eagle-eyed cereal lover has found that Cap’N Crunch is not a captain at all, but a commander, according to the stripes on his uniform. Navy captains sport four stripes, while commanders have three—as the captain does—but many on the ...    

After supporters of the Senate immigration reform bill got a boost from a new report estimating that the bill would substantially decrease the federal budget deficit over the next two decades, conservative opponents of the legislation pushed back Wednesday, saying the legislation would fail to stop illegal immigration, decrease American wages and hurt the Republican Party.The nonpartisan Congressi...    

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Secretary of State John Kerry assured Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the government of Qatar took down a sign board under the name of "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," adding that the United States is committed to all its agreements with the Afghan government.The Taliban office "must not be treated as or represent itself as an embassy or other office representing the Afgh...    

Struggling student loan debtors are being tricked into paying up to $1,600 in fees to private firms offering "debt relief" that they could get for free, according to a report issued Wednesday by the National Consumer Law Center.Student loan debt relief ads began crowding their way onto media in recent months. Consumers deep in credit card debt have heard the pitch for years, in seemingly incessant...    

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Secretary of State John Kerry assured Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the government of Qatar took down a sign board under the name of "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," adding that the United States is committed to all its agreements with the Afghan government.The Taliban office "must not be treated as or represent itself as an embassy or other office representing the Afgh...    

Fans of extraterrestrial anomalies will have a field day with the billion-pixel view of the Curiosity rover's surroundings at a place called Rocknest on Mars. The 360-degree clickable panorama lets you zoom in on an eerie Martian "bird," a weird series of holes, or a shiny object sitting on the Red Planet's surface.Never mind that all these anomalies are perfectly explainable: It's a weird and won...    

A swine virus deadly to young pigs, one never before seen in North America, is spreading rapidly across the United States and proving harder to control than previously believed. The virus now has spread to 13 states - with more than 100 positive cases to date - since it was first diagnosed in the United States last month, said Montserrat Torremorell, the Allen D. Leman Chair in Swine Health and Pr...    

MILAN, Italy - Fashion designers Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana were given a suspended 20-month jail sentence on Wednesday after being found guilty of hiding $1.3 billion in income from tax authorities.The suspended sentence, which one of their lawyers said they would appeal, means they will avoid prison as long as they commit no other crimes for five years.The conviction is the culmination of...    

Prince William and Duchess Kate still aren’t revealing the gender of their first child – because they really don’t know, palace officials insisted Wednesday. New details about the highly anticipated birth of the new heir to the throne were disclosed by an official of St. James Palace. Duchess Kate, 31, is due in mid-July. The palace said she will deliver her baby in a private wing of St. Mary’s ho...    

An argument ended grimly in California this week, with a father found in the driveway bleeding from stab wounds and his son nearby, his severed hands lying on the ground.Shasta County Sherriff’s deputies responded to a reported stabbing in Redding, Calif., on Monday afternoon to find the gruesome scene with “visible injuries” in the driveway, according to a news release.Both Gregory Dunn, 58, and ...    

Two upstate New York men, one of them said to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan, plotted to build a truck-mounted, industrial-strength X-ray weapon to kill “enemies of Israel” by poisoning them with radiation, federal authorities said Wednesday.One of them boasted that he could build a “Hiroshima light switch” and that “everything with respiration would be dead by morning,” authorities said.Investig...