WASHINGTON – About 1.9 million elderly and disabled people signed up for the new Medicare drug benefit over the past month, meaning 7.2 million have taken steps to enroll since the program began Jan. 1. The number should keep rising, the program’s chief says. An additional 20 million people have …

This is a partial transcript from “On the Record,” March 14, 2006, that has been edited for clarity. GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, HOST: Two autopsies, two very, very, very different results. Fourteen-year-old Martin Anderson died hours after this videotape was shot at a Florida boot camp on January 6th. The first …

NEW ORLEANS – Some of the college students flocking to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast for spring break are not coming for the beaches, the booze or the all-night debauchery. But they are getting hot and sweaty nonetheless. Instead of stripping down to bathing suits and sunglasses, thousands of …

CHICAGO – Del Monte Foods Co. (DLM) on Thursday said it would buy cat-food maker Meow Mix Holdings Inc. for $705 million and sell its private-label soup and baby food businesses to focus on its higher-margin branded businesses. The company also announced quarterly profit that beat analysts estimates, helped by …

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – Barry Bonds‘ alleged steroid use is the story of spring training again, no matter how hard he and the San Francisco Giants try to avoid it and keep the focus on his chase of the home run record. Bonds used a vast array of performance-enhancing drugs — …

MAKHACHKALA, Russia – A bomb exploded Friday outside a government office in the southern Russian city of Makhachkala, killing a top-ranking police official, the regional Interior Ministry said. The bomb was planted on the roadside in the center of Makhachkala, the capital of the restive Dagestan region. The blast killed …

WASHINGTON – President Bush welcomed Ellen Johnson Sirleaf to the White House on Tuesday, calling Africa’s first democratically elected female head of state “a pioneer.” “You’re the first woman elected president to any country on the continent of Africa, and that requires courage and vision and the desire to improve …

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Tim McGraw asks a lot of his fans. Onstage, the country singer encourages them to live, love, dance, care, grab it all. Offstage, he urges them to vote, give blood, donate money, to help any way they can. He asks even more of himself. On March 28, …

SAN FRANCISCO – Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his immortal image of World War II servicemen raising an American flag over battle-scarred Iwo Jima, died Sunday. He was 94. Rosenthal died of natural causes at an assisted living facility in the San Francisco suburb …

LOS ANGELES – The Knack lead singer Doug Fieger, perhaps best known for the 1979 hit “My Sharona,” underwent successful brain surgery Thursday, his doctor reported. Fieger, 53, had two brain tumors removed during the operation at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, publicist Guy McCain said. There were no details about the …