An Amber Alert was issued for a 7-month-old boy who was in his mother’s minivan when it was stolen outside her workplace in Chicago. Illinois State Police are searching for Osial Hernandez, who was apparently inadvertently kidnapped during a car theft on the northwest side of the city some time …

NEW YORK – “Sopranos” actor Lillo Brancato Jr.’s murder trial is set to start days after his co-defendant is sentenced. A Nov. 17 trial date was set Friday for Brancato. He is charged in the December 2005 slaying of off-duty New York City police Officer Daniel Enchautegui. Brancato’s trial was …

“The X-Files” star Gillian Anderson is in the middle of a mystery worthy of her former show: How could she and her boyfriend both have never heard of “The Odd Couple”? Anderson and her boyfriend, businessman Mark Griffiths, became the proud parents of a baby boy on October 15, and …

NEW YORK – Police say a drunken Bronx man took out his anger at his wife on her dog, first shooting the beagle with a BB gun then fatally stabbing the animal. Police say the 28-year-old man plunged the kitchen knife into the animal several times after he came home …

WASHINGTON – The top American military commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday that he needs more troops and other aid “as quickly as possible” in a counterinsurgency battle that could get worse before it gets better. Gen. David McKiernan said it’s not just a question of troops — but more economic …

GENEVA – The world’s largest scientific machine may have malfunctioned soon after its spectacular start and still be out of action. But that didn’t stop dignitaries, donors and diplomats from inaugurating the broken atom smasher Tuesday with pomp and pageantry. Taking particular pride was Robert Aymar, director general of CERN, …

ASHEVILLE, North Carolina – You can call her CutoutDissection.com, Cutout for short, but just don’t call her Jennifer. The former Jennifer Thornburg — whose driver’s license now reads Dissection.com, Cutout — wanted to do something to protest animal dissections in schools. The 19-year-old’s new name is also the Web address …

For those Americans — and there may not be many — seeking great foreign authors who have yet to be discovered in English, the Nobel Prize judges present a fresh candidate: Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, this year’s winner of the literature prize. Le Clezio, 68, was cited by the Swedish …

DHAKA, Bangladesh – Police detained a man accused of chopping off the head of a tenant in his apartment Thursday and then parading with it in the streets of Bangladesh’s capital shouting, “I’ve killed my wife,” officials said. The man, identified only as Amin, 34, had quarreled with his wife …

MIAMI – Authorities seized about 400 barnyard animals from a 10-acre farm in southwest Miami-Dade County. Personnel from the Florida Department of Agriculture, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, Miami-Dade police and other agencies converged on the property Thursday, where a man was accused of violating a county “sanitary …