DENVER – A slow-moving autumn storm showed no signs of letting up in Colorado and the western Plains on Thursday, blanketing areas already buried with as much as 3 feet, closing schools and businesses and delaying flights. Roads across Colorado and Wyoming were snow-packed and icy from the first big …

McALLEN, Texas – The crash site of a plane carrying four people was found in a remote, rural area in south Texas. Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Manuel Garza said authorities are still making their way to the site north of Benavides. Garza could confirm no other details. FAA …

SALT LAKE CITY – Utah lawmakers are getting competing views on climate change, one emphasizing the vast scientific consensus about warming trends and humanity’s influence and another raising doubts about the root causes. At a standing-room-only hearing at the Capitol Wednesday, the Public Utilities and Technology Interim Committee heard 90 …

TAIPEI, Taiwan – Taiwan’s Central Weather Bureau says a moderate 6.3-magnitude earthquake has struck east of the island, and there are no immediate reports of casualties or damage. It says the quake struck at 1:36 a.m. Sunday. It was centered about 14 miles east of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan, …

Larimer County Sheriff Jim Alderden announced at a press conference on Sunday that Colorado authorities have ruled the “balloon boy’s” flight a hoax. “It has been determined that this is a hoax. We believe we have evidence at this point to indicate that this was a publicity stunt,” Alderden told …

KABUL – President Hamid Karzai acknowledged fraud Tuesday in the still-unresolved August presidential election but defended the vote as a “victory” for the Afghan people. Results of the Aug. 20 balloting have stalled because of allegations of massive fraud, as a U.N.-backed panel investigates the charges before deciding whether Karzai …

MIAMI – In the hours after Diane Ward died in the master bedroom of her mansion from a gunshot wound to the face, her husband was taken to the Orange County Sheriff’s office for questioning. After all, authorities said James Robert Ward had told a 911 dispatcher that he had …

HEREFORD, Md. – Baltimore County police say the business editor of The Baltimore Sun has been killed in a car accident and his 9-year-old daughter is seriously injured. Police spokesman Bill Toohey says Tim Wheatley was making a left turn Monday morning about two miles from his home when a …

ORANGE, Va. – Actor Robert Duval, filmmaker Ken Burns and some of the nation’s most esteemed historians have defended a Civil War battlefield against Wal-Mart’s plans to build a Supercenter near its boundaries. Now, however, star power is giving way to people with less recognizable names: Lee Frame, Teri L. …

CANTON, Ga. – Cherokee County authorities say 18-year-old prep football standout Matt Blaylock suffered a spinal injury in a swimming pool accident the night before his high school graduation. While visiting friends near Canton, Blaylock dove head-first into the shallow end of a swimming pool Friday night. He had spinal …