NEW YORK – Lindsay Lohan doesn’t want to be called a Teen Queen. In an interview in the March issue of Allure magazine, now on newsstands, the 19-year-old says she wants to be considered a serious actress — and rejects her youthful, party-girl image. “I hate it when people call …

WASHINGTON – New Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke vowed Monday to do his best to carry out the central bank’s mission of fighting inflation, fostering economic growth and nurturing a healthy jobs climate. “Our mission as set forth by the Congress is a critical one,” Bernanke said Monday at his …

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – The former rock band tour manager who lit the pyrotechnics that sparked a deadly nightclub fire pleaded guilty Tuesday to 100 counts of involuntary manslaughter. Daniel Biechele will serve no more than 10 years in prison under the plea deal, which comes two weeks shy of the …

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – U.N. police went to a garbage dump near the Haitian capital Wednesday to recover election materials, including numbered bags apparently used to carry results and tally sheets, amid charges that last week’s presidential election was marred by fraud. Thousands of ballots, including some that were marked, also …

NEW YORK – Still smarting from the shot seen ’round the world, Britney Spears says she rarely takes her baby son, Sean Preston, outside because she fears pushy paparazzi. “I don’t really go out with him,” Spears told People magazine. “And it’s kind of sad because I can’t walk down …

NEW YORK – Super Bowl party so much fun you’ve missed some of those vaunted TV commercials? No worries: Just go online. Yahoo Inc. will feature on its video home page, at http://video.yahoo.com, links to this year’s Super Bowl ads, hosted at MTV Networks’ ifilm.com. There will be a delay …

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Nablus early Monday shot and killed Islamic Jihad’s top commander in the region, the militant group said. Lt. Col. Benjamin Shick, an Israeli commander, said his forces caught a group of militants, including Ahmed Abu Sharik, 30, …

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – The government must disclose whether it used any information from the Bush administration’s terrorist surveillance program in its case against a man convicted of joining Al Qaeda and plotting to assassinate the president, a federal judge has ruled. Judge Gerald Bruce Lee postponed the man’s sentencing at …

WASHINGTON – President Bush has heard the cry from the nation’s governors, who told him Monday that they have serious problems with his plans to cut National Guard troop levels and redirect funding as he proposed in his 2007 fiscal year budget. The president “extended to us a genuine olive …

TREVORTON, Pa. – An early morning fire tore through an apartment house early Tuesday morning, killing five people. At least two families lived in the three-story, brick and white-shingle home, which had 10 tenants in its four apartments, authorities and neighbors said. The coroner released the names of two victims …