JAKARTA (Reuters) – About 50 members of a hardline Indonesian Muslim group held a rowdy protest outside the Dutch embassy on Monday, calling for the death of a Dutch lawmaker behind a film accusing the Koran of inciting violence.
Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration Freedom Party in the Netherlands, launched his short video on the [...]

MONTPELIER, Vt. — Henry Marckres is a cop with no gun or gold badge.
The tools of his trade are his eyes, his taste buds and a hydrometer. His beat: Vermont maple syrup.
Marckres is technically a “maple specialist,” but some in the business call him a “maple cop.” He helps enforce Vermont’s maple regulations for the [...]

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – Google wants US regulators to sign off on a plan to pack wireless Internet services into "TV white space" left empty as buffer zones between television broadcasting frequencies.
Google on Monday sent the Federal Communications Commission its pitch to use TV white space for mobile Internet or telephone services instead of [...]

BRUSSELS, Belgium – As fuel prices soar to record highs and airlines struggle to maintain profitability, the unglamorous but fuel-efficient turboprop regional airliner is making a remarkable comeback.
The revival of the propeller-driven planes — which typically consume a quarter to a third less fuel than equivalent jets — marks a significant new trend in the [...]

ZION NATIONAL PARK, Utah — Late each winter, when the snow gets sloppy and the streams get muddy, the same thought begins creeping ever more insistently into my mind: I need green. I need warm. I need spring.
That feeling often demands beaches. But when it hit last winter, a different vision commanded — desert, slickrock [...]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Tuesday described the economy as being in "sharp decline," the closest he has come yet to conceding an election-year recession has set in.
Appearing tired after a weekend of helping to broker a fire sale takeover of Wall Street investment bank Bear Stearns to keep it from [...]

Hong Kong’s government ordered more than half a million primary and kindergarten students Wednesday to stay home for two weeks because of a deadly flu outbreak. It seems that the precautionary measure is effective in containing the seasonal flu outbreak.
"I think this year we probably have a little bit more seasonal flu, perhaps more widespread," [...]

Wailuku, Hawaii – While most Americans are still only seeing $4 a gallon gas in their nightmares drivers in paradise are coping with the reality of gas at that price. In Maui County, Hawaii prices at the pump for unleaded regular gasoline is already above the $4 mark in rural areas and headed there at [...]

PHOENIX (Business Wire) — Thousands of visitors from across the United States are traveling to Arizona to enjoy Cactus League spring training games. To connect with these visitors, several Arizona tourism leaders worked with GoSeeTell Network in developing GoSeeArizona.com, a new social networking travel Web site.
GoSeeArizona.com provides personalized recommendations for hotels, restaurants, attractions and activities [...]

Visitors from Canada and Japan have benefited from a 16 percent improvement in their consumer buying power due to the strengthening of their currencies against the dollar.
However, the similarities end there.
When comparing what the currency impact will be for Canada and Japan, it really comes down to a tale of two markets. Right now, experts [...]

In the grassy-knoll theory of the NAFTA memo leak, the Conservatives sought to undermine Barack Obama’s presidential campaign to bolster Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, so as to help the Republicans get the match-up they want for John McCain in the general election.
The conspiracy theory goes that McCain can beat Clinton, a polarizing figure [...]

Democrat Senator Barack Obama beat rival Senator Hillary Clinton in Wyoming’s nominating contest on Saturday, bouncing back from a string of losses that gave Clinton new life in their hotly contested presidential battle.
Obama’s victory in the nominating caucus in sparsely populated Wyoming slowed Clinton’s momentum after she won three of four contests on Tuesday in [...]

WASHINGTON — Dangerous cracks in the nation’s job market are deepening. Employers slashed jobs by the largest amount in five years and hundreds of thousands of people dropped out of the labor force – ominous signs that the country is falling toward a recession or has already toppled into one.
For the second straight month, nervous [...]

Hawaii is paradise all year round. But, spring is one of the quietest travel seasons, making it an excellent time to visit the islands. The Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau reports visitors can fly for half the price of summer or winter airfare, and hotel rates also drop $15 to $20 per night. May is [...]

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Being a Democrat in this state means that one’s status in political life is rarely in question and rarely that good. Republicans have a more than two-to-one edge in voter registration — or even 10 to 1 in some counties — and the Democrats, who are gearing up for their presidential caucuses [...]