NORTH BABYLON, N.Y. —  A 17-year-old boy was injured in an explosion inside his New York home after police say he may have been building or playing with a bomb.

Police on Long Island, N.Y., said it wasn't clear if the boy was building an explosive device or playing with one when it went off Monday night in the basement of his house in North Babylon.

The teen's hand was severely injured in the 8 p.m. explosion and he was taken to the hospital.

A police arson squad and federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms were called to the house and remained there through the night conducting their investigation.

The family declined to comment.

GALESBURG, Ill. —  Accused spree killer Nicholas Sheley has told a Knox County judge that he wants to enter a guilty plea.

Sheley made the statement Tuesday to Judge James Stewart while in court for a hearing on a defense request to dismiss 16 of the 17 counts against Sheley in the killing of 65-year-old Ronald Randall of Galesburg in June 2008.

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The judge responded by asking defense attorney John Hanlon if he wanted to discuss the plea with Sheley now or later. The defense said later. The judge says he'll want proof the defense has discussed the issue with Sheley.

Stewart then denied the defense request to dismiss the counts.

In addition to Randall, Shele ... Read more »

NORMAN, Okla. —  A Norman zoo director says a 3-year-old boy was not seriously injured when he was clawed by a 45-pound European lynx after the child approached a chain link fence enclosing the cat.

Janet Schmid, director of the Little River Zoo, said Tuesday the boy suffered superficial wounds on the side of his head in the incident about 3 p.m. Monday.

She said the cat has been placed in an inside enclosure, and a solid fence has been erected to keep the public away from its outside area.

The outside area is a chain link enclosure, including a fenced-in top.

She said the boy was looking at swans when, following his sister, he left a path at the zoo, went through a rope barrier, over a low railroad-tie retaining wall and up to the cat's fence.

STOCKTON, Calif.  —  The family of a retired California policeman has filed a wrongful death lawsuit alleging a doctor abandoned attempts to save the man from a heart attack in order to steal his Rolex wristwatch.

The doctor, 32-year-old Cleveland James Enmon of Hermosa Beach, Calif. is also facing grand theft charges in the case.

Jerry Kubena Sr, a retired Manteca police lieutenant, died June 1 at St. Joseph's Medical Center. After he died, nurses noticed his watch missing and a watch bulge in Enmon's pocket, according to the 15-page civil lawsuit.

The suit, filed by the Kubena's children, alleges that Enmon "formed the intent" to pocket their father's watch while treating him, and at that time the emergency room doctor "abandoned his efforts to resuscitate decedent, leaving decedent to die so that he would not be around to reclaim his wat ... Read more »

A body left decomposing in a hospital for four days was the result of "individual human error" rather than a breakdown in procedure, according to The Royal North Shore Hospital in Sydney, Australia.

A man's body was moved to a viewing room within the mortuary at the major teaching hospital and was left there for several days, Fairfax newspapers reported Tuesday.

The body was found after staff investigated a bad smell. But the hospital said that, if staff had followed correct procedures, the incident would not have happened.

"While the hospital has documented processes for the viewing of deceased persons, in this instance it was individual human error that caused the body to remain, inappropriately, in the viewing area,'' the hospital said in a statement.

The worker involved in the incident was reprimanded and policies were being reinforced to staff, the hospital s ... Read more »

Talk about a super “Scooby” snack! A take-out restaurant in Bristol, England, is serving up a burger so massive – it packs more calories than the government recommends a man or woman eat in an entire day.

The towering burger is called the “Super Scooby.” It's 6-inches tall, weighs more than 3-pounds and packs a whopping 2,645 calories — more than the 2,550 recommended for men and much more than the 1,940 recommended for women.

Spiros Lomvardos, who co-owns the Jolly Fryer fast food joint with his brother, Andreas, said the idea of the super-sized snack started out as a joke.

“A few months ago, me and my brother and another gentleman, Karl Ford, who’s an employee, were sitting at work on a dead quiet night when we saw an ad from a well-known burger chain,” Lomvardos told FO ... Read more »

Who are the world’s best and worst lovers? A new poll of 15,000 women found German men to be the worst because of their "smelly odor" with English lovers coming in a close second because they "let women do all the work."

The poll, done by global research site www.onepoll.com, asked women from 20 countries to rate men on their abilities in bed and give reasons for their answers, the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph reported.

Coming in third on the worst lovers list were Swedish men because the ladies said they were "a bit too quick", while men from Holland were deemed "too rough."

As for American men, they rounded out the Top 5 on the worst lovers list due to their "dominating" ways in the bedroom.

When it came to the best lovers in the world, Spanish men topped the list followed by Brazilians and Italians.

BISMARCK, N.D. —  Amanda Klinger can remember when Bismarck and Mandan were not connected by a bridge, and people had to use a ferry boat to cross the Missouri River.

Klinger celebrated her 105th birthday Monday in a Bismarck nursing home.

She rooms with her 84-year-old daughter, Verdell. Her 91-year-old sister, Ruth Lindblum, also lives in the home.

Amanda Klinger's parents came to the United States from Norway. She was born in 1904 on a farm near Elbow Lake, Minn., before the family homesteaded in North Dakota the following year, living in a sod house.

She remembers growing up on the farm near Voltaire and later Turtle Lake, but farm life wasn't for her. She said she decided, "I'll never marry a farmer because I didn't want to live on a farm."

Klinger has 14 great-great-grandchildren. She says she feels great.

As for any advice, she says, "Liv ... Read more »

KATMANDU, Nepal  —  Police in Nepal say a church has collapsed in the eastern part of the country, killing at least 24 people and injuring an additional 62.

Police official Arjun Khadka says several people were gathered in the eastern town of Dharan for a Christian conference and most of them were sleeping in the building when it collapsed early Wednesday.

The area is about 240 miles southeast of the capital, Katmandu.

Among those killed were 17 women and four children.

WASHINGTON —  Georgia claims that an EU-commissioned report concludes that Russian troops were responsible for ethnic cleansing during last year's war with Georgia.

A Georgian official briefed by a European Union investigator on the report's findings, said Tuesday that the report also concludes that some Russian combat troops crossed into Georgian territory in South Ossetia before the start of hostilities on the night of Aug. 7, 2008.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the briefing ahead of the report's expected release Wednesday. Both sides want to use the report's findings to bolster their claims about the war.

Georgia has claimed— and Russia has denied— that Georgia launched an offensive to repel Russian forces that had crossed into its territory.

MADRID —  Spanish police say narcotics investigators have found $6.3 million in cash buried in a shanty town on the island of Mallorca.

The National Police say authorities trying to break up a drug ring used heavy construction equipment to rip up the concrete floor of a shack in the city of Palma and found seven boxes with the euros, plus 17 pounds of jewelry and gems and $8,000.

A police statement issued Tuesday said one of the boxes was buried under a dog house in a patio of the home.

The money and other valuables were unearthed during a series of raids that began Sept. 18 in a shanty town called Son Banya.

Police also seized undisclosed amounts of heroin, cocaine and marijuana.

Iran has notified the Swiss government that it can have access to three Americans who have been detained in Iran since being arrested for illegal entry in late July, FOX News confirmed.

"Our goal is to ensure the safe return of all our missing and unjustly detained American citizens to the United States as quickly as possible so that they can be reunited with their families," a U.S. official told FOX News.

"We would welcome a decision by the Iranian government to grant consular access to Josh Fattal, Shane Bauer and Sarah Shourd, following our repeated requests."

The move could be seen as a conciliatory gesture on Iran's part, coming ahead of a meeting between Iran and five world powers seeking to persuade Tehran to abandon any effort to build nuclear weapons. The Swiss gover ... Read more »

ROME —  Italy's foreign minister says his government isn't preparing an exit strategy for Italian troops in Afghanistan but that more money must be spent to help win the trust of the people.

Earlier this month some politicians, including a fellow minister in Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government, called for Italy's soldiers to come home soon after six troops were killed in a Kabul bomb blast.

Foreign Minister Franco Frattini also told parliament's foreign affairs commission Tuesday that there can be dialogue with Taliban who renounce violence and don't have any ties with Al Qaeda.

Italy sent 2,800 troops to help with Afghan reconstruction. Frattini says more reconstruction funds are vital to "conquer the hearts and trust" of Afghanistan's people.

CONAKRY, Guinea —  Soldiers reeking of alcohol menaced Guinea's capital Tuesday, a day after the military's presidential guard shot at pro-democracy demonstrators in the West African country, leaving at least 157 people dead, a human rights group said.

The soldiers fired into the air as they roamed the deserted streets of the normally bustling capital. Guinea's military leader, who rose to power in a December coup, said Monday's violence was beyond his control.

Dr. Chierno Maadjou with the Guinean Organization for Defense of Human Rights said 157 people had been killed and more than 1,200 wounded on Monday.

An Associated Press reporter said he saw halls full of wounded patients at the city's large Donka Hospital, some with bullet wounds, others who appeared to have been beaten.

Opposition politician Mutarr Diallo said he witnessed soldiers raping women with rifle butts d ... Read more »

MANILA, Philippines —  Two U.S. Navy construction troops and a Philippines marine were killed Tuesday in a roadside blast in the southern Philippines that officials said was likely an attack by suspected Al Qaeda-linked militants.

It was believed to be just the second time U.S. soldiers have been killed in the southern Philippines in violence blamed on the Abu Sayyaf group since American counterterrorism troops were deployed to the region in 2002, and the first fatalities in seven years.

One Philippine marine also was killed and two others were wounded in the blast on Jolo island, a poor, predominantly Muslim region where the Americans have been providing combat training and weapons to Filipino troops battling the Abu Sayyaf.

Philippine officials described the blast as being caused by a land mine, a descr ... Read more »

A 24th France Telecom employee has killed himself in what the company says is a "suicide spiral."

The 51-year-old father-of-two hurled himself to his death from a bridge onto a busy road in the Haute-Savoie region of the country.

In a letter to his wife, he blamed the unbearable "atmosphere" at his workplace.

France Telecomhas been dogged by a series of suicides in the last 18 months.

The deaths include a woman who jumped from her office window in the summer, while another man survived stabbing himself in the stomach during a work meeting.

Unions say a drive to restructure the company in the face of the global recession is behind the deaths.

The company laid off 22,000 workers between 2006 and 2008 while staff say changing working practices and poor management have placed intolerable pressure on workers.

Labour minister Xavier Darcos this m ... Read more »

A mother-of-two in Britain has pleaded guilty to causing the death of an 11-year-old boy by dangerous driving.

Hannah Saaf knocked down and killed Sam Riddall as he walked home with a group of friends from a church youth service in Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol, on May 1.

Saaf's white Ford Focus estate car was said to have careened off the road and mounted the pavement before hitting the group.

The mother of twins immediately bolted from the scene, leaving her car and Sam behind.

As the 27-year-old fled, doctors at Bristol Royal Infirmary desperately tried to resuscitate the boy but their efforts were in vain.

During the hunt for Saaf, which took nine gruelling days, Sam's parents, Martin and Rachel, made a heartbreaking televised appeal for Saaf to turn herself in.

Riddall, 39, fought back tears as she said: "I am here to appeal to Hannah as a mum, who ha ... Read more »

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan —  A bus packed with Afghan civilians hit a roadside bomb near the southern city of Kandahar Tuesday, killing 30 people and wounding 39, underscoring the dangers civilians face as the eight-year war turns increasingly violent.

Nine women and seven children were among the dead, said provincial police chief, Sardar Mohammad Zazai.

Militants are planting more roadside bombs than ever in Afghanistan. The explosives are intended to kill U.S., NATO and Afghan troops but kill far more Afghan civilians than they do soldiers.

"The enemies of Afghanistan are planting mines on the main highway and killing innocent women and children," Zazai said.

The bus hit the bomb on the western outskirts of Kandahar city, in a militant-controlled district called Maiwand.

Among the 39 wounded, some severely injured passengers were taken to a NATO base for trea ... Read more »

PATNA, India —  Two boats capsized in flooded rivers in eastern India's Bihar state during a major Hindu festival, killing at least 29 people and leaving around 22 missing, police said Tuesday.

At least 20 people swam to shore from one boat that was overcrowded with people returning to their homes after participating in festivities during the Dussehra festival, said Neelmani, a top state police official, who uses only one name.

Rescuers found the bodies of 21 people, including 16 children, Neelmani said, adding that those still missing might be male family members who swam to safety but had not been counted by authorities.

The boat capsized on the Kosi river near Alauli, a village nearly 125 miles north of Patna, the state capital, Neelmani said.

Hours ... Read more »

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan —  Officials say two suspected U.S. missile strikes in northwest Pakistan have killed 13 militants.

The first attack Tuesday killed six militants and wounded six others in South Waziristan.

Three intelligence officials and one government official said a second missile later Tuesday hit a house owned by a known Afghan militant in North Waziristan. Seven insurgents died in the attack.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity citing policy.

The tribal areas are a base for militants launching attacks both in Pakistan and on American and other NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan. Western officials say the area is a stronghold of Al Qaeda's senior leadership.

TAIPEI, Taiwan —  A 17-year-old Taiwanese boy has been arrested for chopping off his father's hands, allegedly to avenge years of physical abuse, a police official said Tuesday.

The boy cut through his father's wrists with a knife while he was asleep at the family's home in central Miaoli on Monday, the official said. The official was speaking on condition of anonymity, citing department policy.

The 37-year-old father, a divorced ironsmith, was in stable condition after doctors reattached his severed hands, the offcial said.

The father and son were identified only by their surname, Fan.

The police official said the boy admitted to cutting his father's hands off and showed no remorse, complaining that he was beaten after refusing to get a job while attending school.

The Apple Daily newspaper quoted the boy as telling police that since his mother left home so ... Read more »

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras —  The coup-installed president of Honduras backed down Monday from an escalating standoff with protesters and suggested he would restore civil liberties and reopen dissident television and radio stations by the end of the week.

Riot police ringed supporters of ousted President Manuel Zelaya who gathered for a large-scale protest march, setting off a daylong standoff. The government of interim President Roberto Micheletti declared the march illegal, sent soldiers to silence dissident broadcasters, and suspended civil liberties for 45 days.

But in a sudden reversal, Micheletti said Monday afternoon that he wanted to "ask the Honduran people for forgiveness" for the measures and said he would lift them in accordance with demands from the same Congress that installed him after a June 28 c ... Read more »