July 21 Reports: Julie Marie Ireland, 52, was arrested for suspicion of DUII. Randy Allan Martin, 27, was arrested on an unspecified outstanding warrant. Ronald Edward Decker, 34, was arrested for escape. Shawn Emil Quaalen, 39, was arrested on an unspecified outstanding warrant. Earl Bradley Hayton, 46, was arrested for possession of meth. Brent Kay Redd, Sr., 45, was arrested for possession of a controlled substance. Betty Ballou reported the theft of her wallet from ... [full story]

LOS ANGELES -- A U.S. Marine was convicted of unpremeditated murder in the kidnapping and execution of a suspected Iraqi insurgent in Hamandiya. Sgt. Lawrence Hutchins was charged with premeditated murder, which carried a mandatory life sentence, but a military jury downgraded the charge to unpremeditated murder, the Los Angeles Times said Thursday. Prosecutors said Hutchins, 23, of Plymouth, Mass., was the leader of an eight-man squad when he convinced the others to kill a ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher said Afghanistan has made enormous strides since 2002, despite ongoing struggles with Taliban. At a news conference Thursday, ahead of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's weekend meeting with President Bush at Camp David, Boucher said the United States has built roads and highways, brought down infant mortality rates and put 5 million children in school. "Afghanistan is in a much better position now than it ever was ... [full story]

BARABOO, Wis. -- A Wisconsin teenager has been found guilty in the shooting death of his school principal last September. The jury of eight women, four men took about six hours Thursday to convict 16-year-old Eric Hainstock, who faces an automatic life sentence for the first-degree intentional homicide of Weston School Principal John Klang in a school hallway in Cazenovia, Wis. Prosecutors said Hainstock, who was 15 at the time of the shooting, fired five ... [full story]

MOSCOW -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says Russia's Arctic expedition is aimed at proving ownership of a large area near the North Pole. Researchers in two mini-submarines dove 14,000 feet under the North Pole Thursday to take soil and plant samples from the seabed. The scientific effort is designed to prop up Russia's claim to about 460,000 square miles of the territory, which contains 25 percent of the world's oil and gas reserves, RIA ... [full story]

BAGHDAD -- Thirteen people were killed by a car bomb near a police station in Habhab, Iraq, Thursday as Coalition forces announced the deaths of two U.S. soldiers. The Multi-National Force announced Thursday two U.S. soldiers involved with Task Force Marne were killed in an "indirect" fire attack that injured 10 others, KUNA, the Kuwait News Agency, reported Thursday. No further information was released. Meanwhile, a suicide car bomb detonated Thursday near the Habhab police ... [full story]

PRISTINA, Serbia -- Kosovo's police have seized 506 handguns and a large amount of ammunition at three sites in Serbia's mainly ethnic-Albanian province, media said Thursday. Gen. Rahman Suleymani, a department chief of the Kosovo multi-national police service, told reporters in the provincial capital of Pristina his teams arrested two suspects for arms trafficking, the Serbian news agency Beta reported. Police also confiscated more than 2,000 bullets and a number of hunting rifles. Suleymani said ... [full story]

LONDON -- An investigation into the shooting of a man mistakenly identified as a suicide bomber in Britain said the blame for the death lies with the Metropolitan Police. Leading counter-terrorism officer and Met Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman was reportedly being blamed for failing to report to his senior officers that Brazilian native Jean Charles de Menezes wasn't one of the four wanted suicide bombers, the Telegraph reported Thursday. The Independent Police Complaints Commission found ... [full story]

LONDON -- Canadian researchers said they've changed their minds about the identity of a young boy who died in the 1912 Titanic disaster and say the child is British. The body was once identified a 13-month-old from Finland. Now scientists say they are convinced the body is that of Sidney Leslie Goodwin, a 19-month-old from Britain, The Telegraph newspaper said Thursday. Sidney was traveling with his parents Frederick and Augusta Goodwin and their five other ... [full story]

TROIS RIVIERES, Quebec -- Investigators said Thursday a group of teenagers found a missing Canadian girl's bicycle the night she was last seen. Cedrika Provencher, 9, of Trois Rivieres, Quebec, vanished Tuesday evening. Her bicycle turned up the next day behind a dumpster more than half a mile from the place where she asked someone if they had seen a missing dog. Constable Michel Letart said that the teens saw the bike apparently abandoned on ... [full story]