RAMALLAH, West Bank – Unpaid teachers shut down thousands of schools across the West Bank and Gaza Strip on Saturday, the first day of the school year, in a major challenge to the embattled Hamas government. The teachers’ strike was observed widely both in the West Bank and Gaza, Hamas’ …

HONOLULU – Respect for your elders? Not in Hawaii’s Senate race. Brash moderate Rep. Ed Case, 53, is telling voters it’s time to force out affable liberal Sen. Daniel Akaka, 82, and end a political career notable for its length more than its achievements. Both candidates are taking to island …

ARROYO GRANDE, Calif. – Cool it folks, as in: Don’t get caught up in all the hysterical rhetoric about war. Yeah, yeah, I know it’s all over the media, hard to miss. Seems everybody’s beating the war drums lately, raising the fear level to code red with inflammatory reminders of …

WASHINGTON – President Bush, warning that “the enemy wants to attack us again,” called on Congress Friday to give U.S. intelligence agencies “the tools needed” to interrogate and try suspected terrorists for war crimes. “Time is running out. Congress needs to act wisely and promptly,” Bush said at a press …

HONOLULU – Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje of the hit TV series “Lost” was arrested on a traffic violation in Waikiki this weekend, police said. The 39-year-old actor, who plays Mr. Eko on the ABC drama, was arrested early Saturday for disobeying a police officer and driving without a license. He posted $500 …

BRUYERES-LE-CHATEL, France – While North Korea was testing a nuclear bomb, France was verifying its nuclear arms, too — with a battalion of soundless, black, cabinet-sized calculators buried beneath a meadow. The world’s established nuclear powers have for the past decade foregone real test blasts for the onscreen kind, harnessing …

MARSEILLE, France – Police arrested five youths Tuesday, aged 15 to 17, suspected of links to the weekend firebombing of a Marseille city bus that left a young woman severely burned, police said. Meanwhile, the agency that oversees police conduct ordered an investigation into the injury of a 16-year-old during …

ORLANDO, Fla. – The federal government will stop seizing small amounts of lower-priced prescription medications mailed from Canada, officials said. Since November 2005, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents have seized prescription drugs that 40,000 Americans had ordered from Canada, Sen. Bill Nelson noted on Tuesday. The new policy, which …

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraq‘s prime minister on Monday announced a new plan aimed at ending the deepening crisis between Shiite and Sunni parties in his government and uniting them behind the drive to stop sectarian killings that have bloodied the country for months. The new plan emerged hours after gunmen …

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Buck O’Neil, the former player-manager who became a beloved spokesman for the Negro Leagues, was remembered Saturday for his capacity “to love even in the face of hatred.” “Buck O’Neil always had a smile for you,” said the Rev. Spencer Francis Barrett, pastor of the Bethel …