A Florida pastor who called off a Quran burning said late Thursday he was “rethinking our position” after a proposed meeting over the location of an Islamic center near New York’s ground zero went unconfirmed.

The son of an 81-year-old man who was fatally beaten Sunday after attending his granddaughter’s wedding in Lynchburg, Virginia, said he holds no animosity toward the three teenagers who are being held as suspects.

Anyone convicted of a violent sex offense against a child in California will get life in prison without parole starting Thursday, after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed “Chelsea’s Law.”

U.S. Marines boarded and seized control Thursday of a cargo ship that had been captured by pirates the day before off the coast of Somalia.

An American family is desperately trying to get their daughter back after the 15-year-old ran away with her boyfriend to Brazil, where authorities handed her over to the boyfriend’s family.

Colorado officials will reopen three subdivisions to residents Thursday as the fire threat lessened in some sections of a canyon, west of Boulder.

Sarah Shourd, one of three American hikers held in Iran for more than a year, will be released Saturday, Iranian officials said Thursday.

A large oil drilling platform is on its way to the Chilean mine where 33 trapped miners are awaiting rescue and is expected to arrive later Thursday or Friday, an engineer overseeing the drilling said.

Nearly nine years after the September 11 terror attacks, a record number of Americans believe the United States is unlikely to ever capture or kill Osama bin Laden, according to a new national poll.

The U.S. State Department on Thursday issued a travel alert, cautioning Americans of “the potential for anti-U.S. demonstrations in many countries” over plans by a Gainesville, Florida, church to burn Qurans on Saturday.