Hurricane Alex has made landfall with winds of 105 mph, the National Hurricane Center said. It was centered about 100 miles south of the Texas-Mexico border.

BP has been trying to shut down an internal safety watchdog agency it set up under congressional pressure four years ago, according to sources close to the office and a leading congressman.

BP's efforts to contain the largest oil spill in U.S. history are being disrupted by towering waves churned up by Hurricane Alex, company officials say.

A former high school teacher in Freeland, Michigan, has been arraigned in two counties on 29 counts of sexual misconduct with an underage student, a Midland County prosecutor said Wednesday.

A U.S. grand jury indicted Joran van der Sloot on charges of wire fraud and extortion in an alleged plot to sell information on the location of Natalee Holloway's remains.

President Barack Obama acknowledged Wednesday that the federal deficit is a significant concern, but he also criticized Republicans for obstructing what he called commonsense legislation and siding with big business.

Two videos surfaced Wednesday of a man claiming to be missing Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri, in which he says he has escaped from U.S. agents and is in hiding in Virginia.

Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan was hit with a blizzard of questions about politically thorny social and economic issues in her Senate confirmation hearings. FULL STORY l HIGHLIGHTS l 5 KEY ISSUES l PHOTOS l QUIZ

A highway-worthy airplane moves one step closer to production with a recent weight exemption approved by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The June death toll for NATO-led forces reached 101 on Wednesday, the highest ever in a single month since the war began almost nine years ago.