TORONTO -- Former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney has been accused by a man in Toronto of trying to cover up $300,000 in cash payments Mulroney received from him.The charge emerged Tuesday night in a Canadian Broadcasting Corp., interview with Karlheinz Schreiber, who is in jail awaiting extradition to Germany on tax evasion and fraud charges.He alleged he gave envelopes full of cash to Mulroney in 1993 and 1994 three times in hotel rooms in ... [full story]

PEORIA, Ill. -- A Peoria, Ill., student with micro braids and maroon highlights was sent home and barred from returning to her middle school until she changes her hair style.Shawnterya Carter, 12, recently had her hair put into the braids and highlights added. She was subsequently confronted by her school principal, who said the color was inappropriate and she wouldn't be allowed to return until the maroon is gone, the Peoria Journal Star reported Wednesday."I ... [full story]

MANCHESTER, England -- A British man convicted of setting up a pedophile ring has been found guilty in the 1999 death of his girlfriend.Fred Lawlor was convicted in Manchester Crown Court of stabbing Dorothy Carre to death, The Daily Telegraph reported Wednesday.Lawlor buried Carre's body under the cellar of her home, where it remained until its discovery in March of this year.The man had convictions in 1981 and 1987 related to violence against women.After Carre's ... [full story]

GALVESTON, Texas -- Police in Galveston, Texas, were trying Wednesday to learn the identity of a female toddler whose body was found in a container that washed up from the bay.A fisherman spotted the plastic container on a tiny island along the Intracoastal waterway Tuesday and called the Galveston County Sheriff's office.Spokesman Maj. Ray Tuttoilmondo would release few details other than to say the child had blonde hair that went to the middle of her ... [full story]

LONDON -- A British court heard that a surrogate mother deliberately deceived two couples into believing she had a miscarriage so she could keep their children.The woman, identified only as Mrs. P, conceived using sperm from two men on separate occasions after agreeing to carry the children, The Daily Mail reported Wednesday.The woman falsely told the families she had miscarried their children in order to allow her to keep the babies.However, Mrs. P's 19-year-old daughter ... [full story]

JERUSALEM -- Israel has informed the United Nations the arsenal of Hezbollah guerrillas' land-to-sea missiles in Lebanon has tripled, Haaretz reported Wednesday.The intelligence came to light Tuesday in a report by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon following up on the second Israel-Hezbollah war in July 2006.Ban's report for the Security Council said Israel had provided "a great deal" of information claiming Hezbollah militants had rehabilitated its military strength north of the Litani River, where "most of ... [full story]

MADRID -- A judge in Madrid found 21 people guilty Wednesday in the March 2004 terror bombings of commuter trains and acquitted seven others.The 27 men and one woman had entered pleas of innocent to charges ranging from murder, forgery and conspiracy to commit a terrorist attack, a BBC correspondent reported.The bombers used 10 backpacks stuffed with explosives and nails on March 11, 2004, to detonate on four packed commuter trains. The explosions killed 191 ... [full story]

WASHINGTON -- An administrative judge in Washington who unsuccessfully sued a dry cleaner for losing a pair of his pants has been fired for unrelated issues.Roy Pearson, 57, was hand-delivered a letter Tuesday afternoon to vacate his office by 5 p.m., The Washington Post reported Wednesday.The Commission on Selection and Tenure of Administrative Law Judges reportedly voted last week against appointing Pearson to a 10-year term after reviewing his decisions and courtroom demeanor, a source ... [full story]

IRBIL, Iraq -- Iraqi Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani told an Iraqi newspaper Wednesday he is a friend of Turkey but won't take orders about Kurdish separatists.In an interview with the Milliyet newspaper, Barzani made some conciliatory remarks about Turkey's fight with Kurdish separatists known as the PKK, but said the group didn't represent all Kurds in northern Iraq."The PKK will either give up violence or confront not only Turkey but the whole Kurdish nation," he ... [full story]

MOSCOW -- The FBI connected a Russian judge to the issuance of falsified passports linked to the disappearance of a U.S. businessman.FBI investigators filed an affidavit in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City that said Marina Gorbachyova, a former Russian judge, was involved in producing and transferring false passports with her brother, Egor Chernov.The FBI arrested Chernov after he was presented with false Bulgarian identification documents showing his picture with an alias, the Moscow ... [full story]