Hurricane Earl weakens to a Category 2 storm with rain and 110 mph winds bearing down on North Carolina's Outer Banks and threatening the Eastern Seaboard.

A two-story Comfort Inn has become a makeshift hurricane hostel on North Carolina's Outer Banks for those who want to stay close to their homes but know they need better shelter from the outslaught of Earl.

Hurricane season is one of the rare times when East Coast waves can reach world-class heights.

Bethany Storro had just bought a pair of sunglasses and was celebrating a new job when a woman walked up to her with a cup and said: "Hey pretty girl, do you want to drink this?"

An Army judge rules that proof of President Barack Obama's eligibility to be president isn't relevant to the defense of an Army doctor accused of failing to obey a lawful order.

Investigators have identified the owner of a trunk in which the mummified remains of two babies were found, bringing them a step closer to solving the intriguing international mystery.

The Justice Department sued the nation's self-proclaimed "toughest sheriff" on Thursday, calling Joe Arpaio's defiance of an investigation into his office's alleged discrimination against Hispanics "unprecedented."

Four more explosive devices tied to the suspect in the Discovery Channel standoff were found at a residence in Montgomery County, Md., authorities told NBC News on Thursday.

The Coast Guard is backing off its earlier report that an oil sheen about a mile long was spreading following a platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

Engineers removed a temporary cap Thursday that stopped oil from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from BP's blown-out well in mid-July.

The developers planning to build a $100 million Islamic center near the World Trade Center site are nearly a quarter-million dollars behind on real estate taxes and late fees.

The man who held three hostages at the Discovery Communications building in Maryland told NBC News in a brief telephone conversation that he had explosives.

A federal appeals court in San Francisco on Thursday tossed out the conviction of an Arizona man who left water jugs for migrants as they passed through the intensely hot desert.

A lawyer familiar with the decision says Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland has commuted the death sentence of an inmate who claims innocence in a triple slaying.

An ailing four-year-old girl -- who weighed only about 15 pounds and was punished by being tied to her bed with twine -- was found dead in her Brooklyn home this morning, cops said. 

Two young goats that wandered onto the thin ledge of a railroad bridge and spent two days high above a highway were hungry but safe when they were plucked to safety with a towering cherry picker.

James J. Lee, the suspected gunman who took hostages at the Discovery Communications building in Maryland, apparently had a long history of contempt for company, which includes the Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, Science Channel and Planet Green networks.

Several current and ex-gang members lashed out at Chicago's police chief on Thursday, calling his so-called "gang summit" initiative to crack down on crime a wasted effort that will have little effect on the streets of the county's third largest city.

For a second time, an Ohio woman has given birth to a baby who couldn't wait and arrived on the drive to the hospital.

A 28-year-old woman severely burned when a stranger threw an acid-like liquid in her face is listed in serious condition in a Portland, Ore., hospital's burn center.

An FBI agent says an Illinois defense attorney facing federal charges that he tried to smuggle a heroin-filled condom into an Indiana federal prison claims to have done it repeatedly, exploiting greater privacy privileges lawyers are afforded in the lockups.

Robert "Joe" Halderman admitted he demanded $2 million in hush money last fall to keep from revealing personal information about Letterman.

A 40-year-old woman was found dead next to the wreckage of a small plane that crashed Thursday in a lagoon off San Francisco Bay, officials said. Divers were searching for two more people who may have been on board.

A Southern California man has been sentenced to death for sexually assaulting and beating to death his girlfriend's 5-year-old daughter.

After finishing a sentence for weapons charges earlier this year, T.I. was poised to have the comeback of the fall.

A homeless man who called 911 from the hot tub of a suburban Portland home and asked for towels, hot chocolate and a hug got arrested for trespassing instead.

The Afghan president's brother confirms to NBC News that Kabul Bank funds were used to buy villas in Dubai but urges the U.S. to step in to prevent a financial panic.

Israeli and Palestinian leaders opened direct peace talks under U.S. auspices on Thursday and agreed to meet every two weeks to try to forge a deal within a year.

By making a spectacle of negotiations, leaders have made Israelis and Palestinians less likely to agree. They should have conducted back-channel, off-the-record talks.

The biggest sign that success could be coming is the real risk of violence flaring up should the talks fail. These kinds of negotiations tend to come in waves, and with each successive collapse, the distrust grows and several more years pass.

At least 25 drug suspects were killed Thursday in a gunfight with the Mexican army near the U.S. border, military sources said.

The first Army chaplain to be killed in action since Vietnam, died this week in Afghanistan, military officials said Thursday.

Suspected leftist rebels killed 14 police officers and wounded seven in an ambush of a five-truck convoy in southern Colombia, a police commander said Thursday.

Family members, upset about a male relative's cross-dressing photos he shared on Facebook, were indicted Thursday in Israel on charges tied to their kidnapping and punishment of the 19-year-old man.

President Felipe Calderon tried to rally frustrated Mexicans behind his increasingly bloody drug war Thursday, saying he knows violence has surged under his watch, but arguing that it is the price of confronting powerful and brutal cartels.

Angry protesters burned tires on the streets of Mozambique's capital and a TV station said at least one person was killed Thursday, a day after at least four people died in clashes between police and rioters.

Holocaust survivor Simon Wiesenthal, who became famous for spending years tracking down Nazi war criminals, was working for Israel's spy agency Mossad, according to a new biography.

Britain's government came under pressure Thursday amid allegations that a top prime ministerial aide was involved with a newspaper investigation into the royal family that involved illegally tapping cell phones.

Authorities say armed men stole a truck with more than 2 tons of explosives from a chemical company in Brazil.

Dutch authorities have found two babies' bodies in the garden of a women arrested last week for killing another child, the prosecution service said on Thursday.

A terminally sick humpback whale that became stranded on a beach in Western Australia two weeks ago was euthanized Thursday with an explosive charge.

LONDON (Reuters Life!) - Scotland's government announced on Thursday that its planned minimum price for alcohol would be set at 45 pence per unit, meaning a bottle of wine would cost at least 4.23 pounds ($6.52) and a bottle of whisky 12.60 pounds.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard edged closer to retaining power in Australia on Thursday when an independent lawmaker said he would support her center-left Labor Party to form Australia's first minority government in almost seven decades.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon will deliver a major speech Thursday, and ahead of that he released video clips touting his priorities — yet none refer to his war on drug cartels.