JERUSALEM – Israel’s president is being dogged by allegations of sexual harassment, and the spiraling scandal has pushed the country’s violent standoff with Hamas over a kidnapped soldier off the front pages. The swirl of accusations against President Moshe Katsav has not led to charges or even a police investigation, …

PHOENIX – The man appointed to overseeing the assets of the polygamist group controlled by fugitive Warren Jeffs has made significant progress in dragging the 19th-century-style religious sect into the 21st century. In the year since Bruce Wisan began the task, 41 people have paid their property taxes and only …

NEW YORK – Will Ferrell and his wife, Viveca Paulin, are expecting. “My wife is pregnant again,” Ferrell told Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show” on Thursday. Asked by Leno if he is indeed the baby’s father, Ferrell joked: “I’m not the father. Chuck Norris is the dad.” Ferrell, 39, …

This is a partial transcript from “The Beltway Boys,” on July 8, 2006, that has been edited for clarity. Watch “The Beltway Boys” Saturday at 6 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. ET and Sunday at 2:00 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. ET. MORT KONDRACKE, CO-HOST: Up: President Bush. After months of deadlock …

TOKYO – A new top-of-the-line U.S. guided missile destroyer with missile-tracking radar was deployed to Japan on Saturday, as tensions mounted over neighboring North Korea’s recent missile tests. The USS Mustin arrived Saturday at Yokosuka, homeport to the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet, with its crew of 300 sailors for permanent …

WASHINGTON – Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) on Wednesday said the company was adopting voluntary principles to guide development of its flagship Windows operating system, which will include allowing computer manufacturers to set Google (GOOG) and other non-Microsoft search engines as a default. Brad Smith, Microsoft senior vice president and general counsel, …

LONDON – A spokesperson for David Hasselhoff denied a report Thursday that the former “Baywatch” and “Knight Rider” star had been turned away from a British Airways flight because he was drunk. Judy Katz, the actor’s publicist, called the story by the tabloid Sun “totally untrue.” Katz said Hasselhoff had …

Up to 9 inches of rain brought flooding to Indiana and Ohio on Wednesday, killing a woman, while a tornado in a county north of New York City partly collapsed a commercial building and ripped the roof off a hotel. Firefighters recovered the body of an Ohio woman who had …

LONDON – More than 600 children die every day in war-ravaged Congo and even more are displaced, sexually abused or swept into the camps of combatant groups, a UNICEF report said Monday. The report comes less than a week before the country’s first democratic elections in more than 40 years, …

MADRID, Spain – Organizers of Spain’s top annual fashion show on Saturday rejected five models as too thin to appear in this year’s event, acting on an earlier decision to bar extremely thin women from the catwalk. The show, known as the Pasarela Cibeles, decided on Sept. 8 not to …