CLEVELAND -- The brother of a Stamford, N.Y., woman who was mauled by a friend's chimpanzee says she is recovering from serious injuries suffered in the incident. Charla Nash's brother, Stephen, said his 55-year-old sister has begun talking and moving at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio despite the injuries she suffered in the Feb. 16 attack, the New York Daily News said Wednesday. "For a time we were very worried; now it's more hopeful and less worried," ... [full story]

RIVERHEAD, N.Y. -- A gymnastics coach in Port Jefferson Station, N.Y., gave a 14-year-old student a bottle of rum as a performance reward, police allege. Police in Suffolk County, N.Y., have charged 22-year-old Spins Gymnastics Academy gymnastics coach Steven Lamensdorf with endangering the welfare of a child and unlawfully dealing with a child over the alleged alcohol incident, Newsday reported Tuesday. Police allege Lamensdorf gave an unidentified female student a bottle of Malibu rum last Friday after ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- The former head of the compensation fund for responders to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack in New York urged the federal government to reopen it. Ken Feinberg told a House subcommittee Tuesday some 11,000 people have been forced to go to court to seek assistance for health problems that developed in the years since they worked at Ground Zero. "The only reason they're litigating is because the Sept. 11 fund compensated their brethren, but ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security says it is spending $20 million to determine if more cameras along the U.S.-Canadian border will enhance security. The United States currently has only 20 cameras along its northern border, but under a new program, DHS will position 44 more surveillance devices near Detroit and Buffalo, N.Y., USA Today reported Wednesday. Mark Borkowski, head of the department's Secure Border Initiative, said the move will determine if an extensive camera ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- U.S. stimulus funds approved as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act appear to be hitting their mark in the early going, a survey indicates. A survey performed by USA Today showed most of the early spending from the $787 billion bill has, as promised by U.S. President Barack Obama, gone to "shovel-ready" projects, creating jobs which otherwise wouldn't have happened this year, the newspaper reported Wednesday. The investigation indicated that hiring on those ... [full story]

PORT HURON, Mich. -- Federal agents in eastern Michigan announced Wednesday they had begun rounding up members of the Devil's Disciples Motorcycle Club. FBI agents were serving arrest warrants in the Port Huron and Clinton Township areas in the latest in a series of operations against Detroit-area biker gangs. The Detroit News said as many as 22 suspects were expected to be picked up Wednesday. The pending charges were not immediately known. The newspaper said the FBI was ... [full story]

BOSTON -- Lawyers declined to discuss their strategy Wednesday as they headed for a Boston federal court hearing on the planned deportation of President Obama's aunt. Attorneys representing Zeituni Onyango met behind closed doors with U.S. Immigration Judge Leonard Shapiro to discuss the case, which the Boston Globe says is being closely watched as a test of the new president's commitment to immigration laws. Onyango is the half-sister of Obama's late Kenyan father. She lost a bid ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Army is investigating allegations soldiers medically unfit for duty were deployed to Iraq from Alaska's Fort Wainwright, an army spokeswoman says. The inquiry is the result of complaints that commanders deployed some soldiers before they completed tests for health problems, underwent necessary surgeries or recuperated from operations, USA Today reported Wednesday. One of those soldiers, profiled by USA Today, was deployed despite a doctor's recommendation that he wear a heart monitor because of ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- The recession may make it easier to gain admission to some private colleges in the United States this year, college officials say. A drop in the number of applications is prompting many private schools to send out more letters of acceptance, create bigger waiting lists and pump more money into financial aid, the Washington Post reported Wednesday. At Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University, applications were down by as much as 35 percent last fall, giving those ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- The corruption case against former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens has been dropped by the U.S. Justice Department, a statement issued by the department said. The 85-year-old Republican lawmaker was convicted last October on seven counts of lying on federal financial disclosure forms about free services he received, many for the renovation of his Alaska home. Sentencing of Stevens had been delayed amid charges by an FBI agent of prosecutorial misconduct in the case. Throughout the ... [full story]

EVANSTON, Ill. -- Legal decisions made behind closed doors are serving to greatly reduce the number of open-court trials being held in the United States, a scholar says. The number of U.S. legal cases that go to trial has declined at an alarming rate over the last couple of decades, Northwestern University School of Law professor Robert Burns argues in a new book, the university said in a release from Evanston, Ill. Burns argues in "The ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- Fears that the computer worm Conficker.c would cause widespread April Fools' Day chaos were proving unfounded Wednesday, U.S. experts said. Computer security experts warily watching infected systems said that while the malicious code activated itself as expected Wednesday, no reports of major problems had surfaced, CNN reported. "As long as you've patched or at least brought your antivirus software up to speed, you should be fine," Chris Pirillo, a CNN tech expert, told the broadcaster, ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- Attempting to eradicate poppy fields in Afghanistan is counterproductive, the United States' top envoy to the country says. Even though U.S. President Barack Obama's new strategy for Afghanistan calls for continued efforts to destroy the flowers used in the production of opium, Richard Holbrooke, the administration's coordinator of Afghanistan policy, called the practice "wasteful and ineffective" at a Brussels forum this month, USA Today reported Tuesday. Moves to eradicate poppies have been "pushing farmers into ... [full story]