ATLANTA (AP) - Griffin B. Bell, the shrewd Southern lawyer who grew up with Jimmy Carter and later became U.S. attorney general after Carter was elected president, died Monday. He was 90.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) - The former president of Verizon Pennsylvania testified Monday that a powerful state lawmaker gave him a list of demands worth $50 million during negotiations over phone-industry deregulation.

MADRAS, Ore. (AP) - A couple who hadn't been seen for three days were found dead in their locked bedroom with their crying 9-month-old daughter in an apparent murder-suicide. Three older children had been left out on their own.

ContentType:Spot Development; ContentElement:FullStory; Breaking:True; ^By PAUL J. WEBER= ^Associated Press Writer=

MILWAUKEE (AP) - A whopper about a devious baby and his diapers is the top lie of 2008, an organization of champion fibbers declared Monday.

As of Monday, Jan. 5, 2009, at least 559 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The department last updated its figures Monday at 10 a.m. EST.

JACKSON, Ohio (AP) - Police say an angry 4-year-old Ohio boy grabbed a gun from a closet and shot his baby sitter.

FREDERICK, Md. (AP) - Anthrax mailing suspect Bruce Ivins tormented his wife with rudeness and behaved erratically in the weeks before the Army scientist took his own life by overdosing on Tylenol, according to documents released Monday.

ContentType:Spot Development; ContentElement:FullStory; Breaking:True; ^By ROXANA HEGEMAN= ^Associated Press Writer=

ContentType:Spot Development; ContentElement:FullStory; Breaking:True; ^By MICHAEL TARM= ^Associated Press Writer=

SEATTLE (AP) - Authorities combing through 60 tons of trash, searching for the body of a baby allegedly dumped by his 16-year-old mother, found a dead infant in the garbage Monday.

SEATTLE (AP) - A judge has essentially put the Northwest chapter of the American Lung Association out of business.

CHICAGO (AP) - State legislators weighing evidence against Gov. Rod Blagojevich may finish their work before getting any tapes of the governor's conversations that were made secretly by the FBI, attorneys indicated Monday.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - Four hospitals in New York state paid kickbacks to get more patients into their drug treatment programs, which billed Medicaid for services that weren't standard or necessary and lacked state certification, lawsuits allege.

ContentType:Spot Development; ContentElement:FullStory; Breaking:True; ^By BARRY MASSEY= ^Associated Press Writer=

ContentType:Spot Development; ContentElement:FullStory; Breaking:True; ^By BOB LEWIS= ^Associated Press Writer=

JACKSON, Ohio (AP) - A 74-year-old southern Ohio man has pleaded guilty to hiring someone to kill his wife in their farmhouse last spring.

ContentType:Spot Development; ContentElement:FullStory; Breaking:True; ^By VANESSA ROLLE= ^Associated Press Writer=

NEW YORK (AP) - The Committee to Protect Journalists says Iraq remains the most lethal place for working media members despite a two-thirds decline in deaths there in 2008.

NEW YORK (AP) - A contractor was charged with manslaughter Monday for allegedly using worn, fraying safety straps that broke apart and caused a crane to crash down on a Manhattan neighborhood, killing seven people in one of the city's worst construction accidents in decades.