Large sections of the Plains states came under tornado watches Saturday as a wave of storms swept through.The greatest threat late Saturday was in eastern Kansas and Oklahoma, weather.com reported, with central Oklahoma seeing a spike on Sunday.But Weather Channel meteorologist Michael Palmer saidthe storms on Sunday afternoon and evening were likely to carry a greater chance of tornadoes andthe...

WASHINGTON Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke says pessimists forecasting that the economy will not reap sizable benefits from the computer revolution are likely to be proven wrong.Bernanke told a college graduating class Saturday that the long-range practical consequences of innovations such as faster computers and the Internet are hard to predict. But he said inventors have only scratc...

Thousands of people protested in Rome on Saturday against austerity policies and high unemployment, urging new Prime Minister Enrico Letta to focus on creating jobs to help pull the country out of recession. "We hope that this government will finally start listening to us because we are losing our patience," said Enzo Bernardis, who joined the sea of protesters waving red flags and calling fo...

BEIJING An official visit to Beijing by Israeli and Palestinian leaders last week has prompted speculation that China may finally be ready to claim its place as a world power by trying to negotiate an end to one of world's most caustic conflicts.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with Chinese President Xi Jinping within days of each other in Bei...

The New York college student who was shot during a home robbery early Friday was killed by police gunfire, officials said at a news conference Saturday.According to NBC New York affiliate WNBC, Nassau County Police said Andrea Rebello, 21, was killed by police fire, not by the armed gunman attempting to rob the off-campus house where she lived with her twin sister, Jessica, and several other wom...

At Friday's house hearing on privacy and domestic drones, government representatives and civil rights advocates tried to wrap their brains around a drone-filled future.Once drones are a common sight as scheduled in 2015, activists have suggested that privacy laws need an update. Police drones, for example, are already proving their use, but will privacy be threatened by more capable technology? Wh...

The H1N1 virus strain that caused a 2009 swine flu outbreak in humans was detected in northern elephant seals off the coast of central California.Scientists say this is the first time marine mammals have been found to carry the H1N1 flu strain, which originated in pigs. The seals seem to have picked up the virus while at sea, but it's unclear how this happened."We thought we might find influenza v...

BEIJING Shopping for groceries is a painful process for Tan Yinghong, a mother in her mid-30s.Just to buy meat, vegetables and milk for her 7-year-old son she has to pick her way through a minefield of possible perils fake lamb, diseased pork, toxic ginger, tainted milk and unsafe bottled water. So after years of scandals and the government's inability to clean up the food supply chain, this...

About 50 to 60 people were injured Saturday when a driver described by witnesses as an elderly man drove his car into a group of hikers marching in a parade in a small Virginia mountain town.Washington County director of emergency management Pokey Harris said no fatalities had been reported.The injuries ranged from critical to superficial, he said. Three of the victims were flown by helicopte...

Oxbow put D. Wayne Lukas in the record books again with an upset of Orb in the Preakness Stakes on Saturday, giving the Hall of Fame trainer his 14th win in a Triple Crown race. Kentucky Derby winner Orb was unable to find his rhythm after breaking from the rail, and never challenged in finishing fourth. The loss ended any chance of a Triple try at the Belmont Stakes in three weeks, extending the ...

Witnesses in southwestern Virginia said a car drove into a crowd at a parade Saturday and hurt several people, but the nature of their injuries wasn't immediately known.It happened around 2:30 p.m. during the Hikers Parade at the Trail Days festival, an annual celebration of the Appalachian Trail in Damascus, a small mountain town near the Tennessee state line about a half-hour drive east of ...

Officials toured the scene of a two-train collision in Connecticut that injured dozens of people and halted rail traffic from New York to Boston on Friday.Area hospitals reported seeing 70 people after the rush-hour collision. Two remained in critical condition on Saturday.The damage is absolutely staggering, Sen. Richard Blumenthal told reporters on Saturday after a tour of the scene. Ribbons ...

Authorities are investigating the overnight shooting death of a 32-year-old man in New Yorks Greenwich Village as a hate crime after police said the shooter may have hurled anti-gay slurs."This clearly looks to be a hate crime," NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly told reporters on Saturday.While investigators continued to piece together the events leading up to the shooting, police identified the victim...

Tracie Felker and Joe Marion share a deep passion for Scouting. Each has a son who attained the top rank of Eagle, and each has spent numerous years and thousands of hours volunteering as Scout leaders, promoting Scout values.And thats where they diverge. When the Boy Scouts of America votes next week on whether to admit gay youth as members, Felker and Marion hope for opposite outcomes.Marion s...

NASA is getting plenty of advice and sympathy as it assesses whether its Kepler planet-hunting telescope can be revived after the failure of its reaction-control system. The reactions from scientists and engineers range from repair tips to an Audenesque elegy. Here's a sampling:How to fix KeplerThe reason why the $600 million Kepler spacecraft can no longer search for planetary transits is tha...

Waiting hours for a cellphone to charge may become a thing of the past, thanks to an 18-year-old high-school student's invention. She won a $50,000 prize Friday at an international science fair for creating an energy storage device that can be fully juiced in 20 to 30 seconds.The fast-charging device is a so-called supercapacitor, a gizmo that can pack a lot of energy into a tiny space, charges qu...

Imagine having a drink with dinner at a restaurant only to be pulled over on the way home and slapped with a DUI. That could happen under a proposed plan to toughen the drunk driving laws across the country, and it has restaurateurs alarmed.The National Transportation Safety Board wants states to make it illegal to drive with a blood-alcohol content level above 0.05. Currently all U.S. states set ...

Are gadgets making us dumber? Two new studies suggest they might be. One found that people who are interrupted by technology score 20 percent lower on a standard cognition test. A second demonstrated that some students, even when on their best behavior, can't concentrate on homework for more than two minutes without distracting themselves by using social media or writing an email.Interruptions are...

It's the hottest not-yet-confirmed story in entertainment at the moment: Are Beyonce and Jay-Z about to announce that baby No. 2 is on the way?E! Online and other outlets seem positive this is the case, though thus far "sources" are the only place information has come from -- no one's spokesperson has stepped forward to put the official stamp on it. But perhaps Beyonce herself reportedly did, on a...

A US Airways flight made a belly landing at Newark International Airport in the early morning hours on Saturday after the plane reported a problem with its landing gear, a spokesman for the airline said.No injuries were reported after Express Flight 4560 landed just after 1 a.m. carrying 31 passengers and three crew from Philadelphia, US Airways spokesman Davien Anderson said in a statement. The D...

PARIS -- French President Francois Hollande has signed into law a bill allowing same-sex marriage, making France the 14th country to legalize gay weddings.France's official journal announced on Saturday the bill had become law after the Constitutional Council gave it the go-ahead on Friday.The bill, a campaign pledge by the Socialist president, has been for months hotly contested by many conservat...

CANNES, France -- A man was arrested at the Cannes film festival on Friday after firing a starting pistol during a live TV broadcast on the palm-lined waterfront, sending actors Christoph Waltz and Daniel Auteuil running for cover.French TV station Canal+ was interviewing Austria's Oscar-winning Waltz and French actor Auteuil live on its nightly news show from a beach-front set before a crowd of s...

It hasnt been a fun week in the West Wing, but President Barack Obama insisted Friday that his focus remains on job creation despite Washingtons tendency to get distracted by political battles.I know it can seem frustrating sometimes when it seems like Washingtons priorities arent your priorities, he said at a manufacturing plant in Baltimore, Md. I know it all seems like folks down th...

By Kurt SchlosserNBC NewsZach Galifianakis warned Brian Williams that viewers would turn off a long interview piece with the actor if it aired on "Rock Center." But after watching several candid minutes with the comedian and "Hangover" star on Friday night, it was hard not to be left wanting more.Galifianakis, the bearded comic turned reluctant big-time star, opened up to Williams about more than ...

Actress Angelina Jolies revelation this week that shed had both breasts removed to lower her elevated risk of cancer came as a bombshell to many -- but not to three sisters from Berkeley Heights, N.J.The women -- Cathy Balsamo, Cindy Lepore and Patti Broccoli -- have spent most of the past year grappling with the very dilemma that Jolie faced: What to do when a genetic mutation means youve got ...