Valero Energy Corp., the largest U.S. refiner, said it will permanently close its Delaware City, Delaware, plant because of mounting losses after the recession eroded demand for gasoline and diesel.

Japan's Honda Motor Co. Ltd. has again produced the most fuel-efficient and least-polluting vehicles on American roads, the U.S. government projections for 2009 showed on Friday.

President Barack Obama's job approval rating has dropped below 50 percent in a second major poll, in an indication he is suffering from the long health care debate and weakness in the economy, Gallup said on Friday.

Hugo Chavez has defended the alleged terrorist mastermind Carlos the Jackal, saying the Venezuelan imprisoned in France was an important “revolutionary fighter” who supported the cause of the Palestinians.

The ringleader of a group of Miami men convicted of plotting to blow up Chicago's Sears Tower and government offices was sentenced to 13-1/2 years in prison on Friday.

The U.S. Army has reversed its position and now says it will open former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's appearance on Fort Bragg to media, despite fears the event will turn into political grandstanding against President Barack Obama.

A university's requirement that overweight undergraduates take a fitness course to receive their degrees has raised the hackles of students and the eyebrows of health and legal experts.

The University of Nebraska's governing board has voted down a proposal to restrict the school's rules governing embryonic stem-cell research beyond what the federal government allows.

Bill Gross, who runs the world's biggest bond fund at Pacific Investment Management Co., said Chinese growth is likely to be hurt by an absence of consumer demand from trading partners such as the U.S.

UNICEF urged the world to help the 1 billion children still deprived of food, shelter, clean water or health care — and the hundreds of millions more threatened by violence — two decades after the U.N. adopted a treaty guaranteeing children's rights.