SAN FRANCISCO – Fast-food customers are hearing something new as they order burgers, pizza and all things fried: Would you like wine with that? No one’s selling cases of McMerlot just yet, but a number of so-called “quick-serve” restaurants are adding beer and wine to the menu, partly to boost …

PACHUCA, Mexico – A running battle between police and gunmen has left 12 people dead in this central Mexican city, officials said Friday. The dead included three police officers and nine gunmen, said Hidalgo state Attorney General Jose Alberto Rodriguez. Two state police officers and one city officer remained hospitalized …

LONDON – A British auction house says a signed copy of Adolf Hitler’s infamous manifesto “Mein Kampf” has fetched 21,000 pounds ($34,900). Mullock’s Auctioneers in Ludlow, in western England, says the semi-autobiographical book was sold to an anonymous telephone bidder Thursday. The say the book is a prepublication copy given …

Roughly 56 percent of potentially deadly melanoma skin cancers are found not by patients but through full-body skin examinations conducted by a dermatologist, new research shows. Skin cancers detected by dermatologists were thinner and more likely to be only on the outer layer of skin than were cancers detected by …

As Tropical Storm Claudette brought heavy rains to the Gulf Coast after landfall Monday, experts turned their attention to Hurricane Bill, slated to become the first major storm of the season within the next few days. Just hours after forming in the Atlantic Monday, Bill had maximum sustained winds near …

WASHINGTON – After weeks of secretive talks, a bipartisan group in the Senate edged closer Monday to a health care compromise that omits two key Democratic priorities but incorporates provisions to slow the explosive rise in medical costs, officials said. These officials said participants were on track to exclude a …

Police are investigating a possible connection between a shooting in North Carolina and the spree killings that have terrorized a small South Carolina town. A Gaston County, N.C. police officer responding to a burglary call shot and killed a man early Monday morning. That man’s car — an old Ford …

WASHINGTON – Evangelical megachurch pastor Rick Warren says America’s largest Islamic organization showed courage when it invited him to speak at its annual convention. Warren is the founder of Saddleback Community Church in Orange County, California, and one of the most prominent religious leaders in the U.S. He addressed the …

TURNBERRY, Scotland – On the eve of the British Open, Tom Watson got a modern-day text message from Jack Nicklaus’ wife. Then it was time to turn back the clock at Turnberry. Thirty-two years after his epic “Duel in the Sun” with the Golden Bear, Watson took advantage of pristine …

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – A man whose body was found with those of three children in a car submerged in a New Mexico lake tentatively was identified as Richard Robert Sanchez of Albuquerque, who disappeared in August 2001 with his three young sons. A spokeswoman for the state Office of the …