The initial blush of President Barack Obama's health care triumph immediately gives way to a sober political reality — he must sell it to an angry and unpredictable electorate, still reeling from the recession.

Pivotal moments in American health care history capped by the House vote Sunday night passing President Barack Obama's comprehensive plan.

Rarely does the government, that big, clumsy, poorly regarded oaf, pull off anything short of war that touches all lives with one act, one stroke of a president's pen. Such a moment has come.

President Barack Obama and House Democratic leaders struck a last-minute deal Sunday with abortion foes to secure the final few votes needed to remake America's health care system, writing a climactic chapter in a century-old quest for near universal coverage.

A volcano in southern Iceland has erupted for the first time in almost 200 years, raising concerns that it could trigger a larger and potentially more dangerous eruption at a volatile volcano nearby.

The pope told victims of sexual abuse "I am truly sorry." His pastoral letter was the first statement of its kind by the Vatican on the sexual abuse of children.

Authorities will search once again for a missing U.S. teen after an American couple took an underwater picture of what they believe might be Natalee Holloway's remains, a spokeswoman for the prosecutors' office told The Associated Press on Saturday.

The tense atmosphere surrounding a California police department plagued by booby trap attacks has been stepped up a notch following the latest threat against officers.

A 16-year-old boy was responsible for an intercom announcement ordering black people to leave from a Wal-Mart store in southern New Jersey, angering customers and prompting company leaders to apologize, police said Saturday.

The Rapid City, S.D., police chief said in a report released Friday that he regrets his department's outing of a lesbian Air Force sergeant led to her military discharge, but that his officers followed department protocol.