WASHINGTON – The World Health Organization has raised its pandemic alert for swine flu to the second highest level, meaning that it believes a global outbreak of the disease is imminent. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan made the decision Wednesday to raise the alert level from phase 4 — signifying transmission …

NEW YORK – As a strategy for treating type 2 diabetes in obese individuals, gastric surgery to induce weight loss is effective and worth the cost, investigators in Melbourne, Australia, report. A recent clinical trial showed that “surgically induced weight loss leads to the remission of type 2 diabetes in …

DES MOINES, Iowa – Iowa energy officials have approved more than $2 million for an effort to grow algae at a southwest Iowa ethanol plant and use the material to make fuel. The 18-member Iowa Power Fund Board approved the $2,085,000 grant this week to assist in the commercialization of …

TBILISI, Georgia – Former Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze says if he were his country’s current embattled president he would resign. Shevardnadze recalled in an interview with The Associated Press Tuesday that he voluntarily stepped down in 2003 to avoid bloodshed during massive public protests known as the Rose Revolution. The …

The mother of missing New York teen Brittanee Drexel thinks her daughter could be dead after going on a spring break trip to Myrtle Beach against her wishes. Dawn Drexel told WHEC News 10 in Rochester, N.Y., that her daughter would never run away. “I seriously think someone took my …

HANALEI, Hawaii – If life is a beach, Hanalei Bay must be heaven. This remote, two-mile crescent-shaped beach on Kauai where the emerald mountains meet the sparkling sea was selected No. 1 on “Dr. Beach” Stephen P. Leatherman’s 2009 list of top 10 beaches, which was released Friday. Hanalei beat …

EUGENE, Ore. – An Oregon man has filed a federal lawsuit claiming his civil rights were violated when required to live at a place with daily religious services following his release from prison. Jason Dwain Davies, 32, was sentenced in 2005 after pleading guilty to identity theft, drug possession and …

There is no reason to believe an abducted missing 5-year-old Michigan girl is dead, despite finding new evidence in a registered sex offender’s apartment, police said. Meanwhile a search warrant says there is evidence that Nevaeh Buchanan was stabbed, MyFOXDetroit.com reported. Police searched a room at the Motel 7 in …

DES MOINES, Iowa – According to a published report, both an FBI informant and an undercover Minnesota sheriff’s deputy spied on political activists in Iowa City last year before the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. The Des Moines Register reports in Sunday’s editions that it obtained confidential FBI …

MANAMA, Bahrain – Encouraged by a limited block on alcoholic drinks, conservative lawmakers in Bahrain are pressing for a wider ban in the tiny kingdom that’s home to a major U.S. naval base. It’s the latest attempt to clamp down on alcohol and Western-style nightlife in the Gulf state, which …