CHICAGO – Here’s a juicy thought to chomp on. What if the simple act of chewing gum helped you keep your weight down, reduce stress, improve focus — or all three? Sure, a cynic might reply, just as eating pizza raises your IQ and chocolate-chip cookies make you skinny. Wm. …

MONTERREY, Mexico – A man suspected of participating in the rapes and killings of at least 10 women in a border city made infamous by the deaths of more than 100 young women since 1993 has been arrested, U.S. officials said Thursday. U.S. Ambassador Tony Garza called Tuesday’s arrest of …

LONDON – A British TV channel is snuffing out smoking from classic children’s cartoons after a viewer complaint about episodes of “Tom and Jerry.” Children’s channel Boomerang said Tuesday it had cut scenes from two episodes of the violent cat-and-mouse cartoon “where smoking could be deemed to be glamorized.” “We …

ROCKVILLE, Md. – A former White House adviser pleaded guilty to theft Friday, briefly breaking into tears as he tried to explain to a judge why he made phony returns at discount department stores while working as a top aide to President Bush. “Something did go very wrong,” Claude Allen …

SAN FRANCISCO – U.S. consumer safety officials said on Tuesday they are reviewing all Sony-made lithium-ion batteries in laptop computers for fire hazards after Dell Inc. (DELL) announced the largest electronics recall in the United States. Dell, the No. 1 maker of personal computers, on Monday said it is recalling …

WASHINGTON – The slowdown in the once-sizzling housing market is spreading, with 29 states reporting spring sales declines, led by big drops in former boom areas of Arizona, Florida and California. Nationally, sales were down 7 percent in the April-June quarter this year compared with the same period in 2005, …

BAGHDAD, Iraq – A suicide bomber detonated a belt of explosives Thursday near a highly revered Shiite shrine in southern Iraq, killing at least 35 people and injuring 122, an official said. The bomber blew himself up while being patted down by police near the Imam Ali mosque in the …

TOPEKA, Kan. – Conservative Republicans who pushed anti-evolution standards back into Kansas schools last year have lost control of the state Board of Education once again. The most closely watched race was in western Kansas, where incumbent conservative Connie Morris lost her GOP primary Tuesday. The former teacher had described …

GRETNA, La. – An appearance by Corey Miller at a Hurricane Katrina documentary premiere in New Orleans has led a judge to put the rapper on full home confinement until his second trial on a second-degree murder charge. Miller, 35, is awaiting a retrial in the 2002 shooting of a …

HONOLULU – Typhoon Ioke knocked out Wake Island’s weather sensors on Thursday as it lashed the isle with some of the central Pacific’s fiercest winds in over a decade, the National Weather Service said. Forecasters monitoring the 2.5-square-mile atoll’s wind and temperature gauges from Hawaii said the instruments blew out …