NEW YORK – The New York Police Department has quietly flipped the switch on a high-tech command center designed to protect lower Manhattan from terrorist threats. The center, located in a nondescript office tower, is part of an ambitious $100 million security initiative launched in response to the Sept. 11, …

DETROIT – General Motors is bailing out on Tiger Woods. Woods, a global icon in sports with his 14 major championships, has been carrying the Buick logo on his golf bag for the last nine years and still had one year left on his contract. But General Motors Corp. was …

CHICAGO – Won’t kiss on the first date? How about waiting until marriage? Chicagoans Melody LaLuz, 28, and Claudaniel Fabien, 30, shared their first kiss Saturday at the altar. The two teach abstinence at the city’s public schools and practiced what they preached to their teenage students. The Chicago Tribune …

ST. JOHNS, Ariz. – A dependency hearing is scheduled Thursday afternoon for an 8-year-old boy accused in the deaths of his father and another man. The boy is charged in juvenile court with two counts of premeditated murder in the Nov. 5 deaths of his father, 29-year-old Vincent Romero, and …

WASHINGTON – The Labor Department on Thursday announced final revisions in the Family and Medical Leave Act, including new rules defining how families of wounded service members will be able to take unpaid leave to care for them. While the addition of military families to the landmark law received positive …

ROMULUS, Mich. – A midnight visit to an airplane at Detroit Metropolitan Airport has landed a Michigan couple in trouble. A 22-year-old airplane cleaner from Dearborn Heights was arrested Monday for bringing his girlfriend aboard a Northwest Airlines plane just after midnight without authorization. An airport spokesman says the man …

SALT LAKE CITY – Hoping to combat the “snitch” label that often leads to silent suffering, six Utah schools have introduced a Web site that allows students to anonymously report bullies. A Brigham Young University student, Justin Bergener, created the site, which also lets students post information about thefts, drugs …

SEKIU, Wash. – A Sekiu woman says she was shot in the leg by her stove. Cory Davis told the Peninsula Daily News she had just stoked her cast-iron heating stove Sunday when she heard a loud bang and was struck in her left calf. Davis says a case of …

BOSTON – Just call Choochy the poodle a “runway runaway.” The “fast and elusive” poodle scampered across runways and taxiways at Logan International Airport over the weekend, evading airport personnel for more than 17 hours and delaying at least eight flights. Airport spokesman Phil Orlandella says Choochy escaped from her …

Fast food fan Natalie Jackson was hit with a $264 fine at KFC — for staying too long gorging on a monster-sized “family bucket.” The British trainee nurse and a pal ordered 14 chicken pieces, six bags of fries and large cokes after driving to their local branch. They spent …