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The wide-ranging federal spending bill will prevent any gaps in government funding as well as take some of the sting out of automatic spending cuts. The House approved it Wednesday.

Russell Johnson, the actor whose job it was to be the voice of reason and calm on an island of shipwrecked ninnies, reportedly died of natural causes at his home in Washington state. Johnson's role as the Professor on the 1960s comedy Gilligan's Island endeared him to audiences.

A presentation slide cited by The Guardian is subtitled "SMS Text Messages: A Goldmine to Exploit." The top secret Dishfire text-collection program was reportedly both global and arbitrary.

We look at some of the pros and cons of changes to U.S. policy on electronic surveillance that the president might endorse.

The fire, apparently started at a camp site, has swept through more than 1,500 acres in the San Gabriel Mountains east of Los Angeles.

Scientists hunting for planets that could support life have been too focused on finding places that resemble Earth, according to a report in the journal Astrobiology. The authors have come up with a list of traits that might make a planet "superhabitable."

Employees at an Amazon.com facility in Delaware have decided against forming a labor union. The company is openly opposed to unions and has successfully fought previous efforts to unionize here, but the attempts had never before gotten as far as an employee vote.

An exceptionally rare flower that is virtually extinct has been stolen from London's Kew Gardens, in a crime experts say could be the work of an obsessed collector. aA British newspaper says that stealing the precious water lily "is like an old master theft."

The state has run out of the drug used in past executions. The drugs administered to killer and rapist Dennis McGuire had not been used in Ohio before. He was treated "far more humanely" than the woman he killed, her family said Thursday.

VIDEO: On Jan. 17, 1961, Ike spoke to the nation about a military-industrial complex. He said "an alert and knowledgeable citizenry" must help safeguard security and liberty. Friday, exactly 53 years later, Obama will speak about surveillance programs that critics say threaten civil liberties.