BOSTON (AP) — Fearful of another surprise Republican victory, Democrats are pouring money into the Massachusetts Senate race to succeed John Kerry and dispatching President Barack Obama to the state to rally party loyalists two weeks before Election Day.

DETROIT (AP) — General Motors CEO Dan Akerson says the company's finances are sound enough to consider paying a dividend or even buying more of its stock from the U.S. government.

ROME (AP) — After five dominating years, Usain Bolt is showing signs of slowing down.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Education Secretary Arne Duncan and his successors would be relegated to cheerleaders for the nation's schools, and governors would be put in charge of classrooms under companion bills Senate and House Republicans introduced Thursday.

By Thomas Escritt and Jim Finkle AMSTERDAM/BOSTON (Reuters) - Europol said a global effort led by Microsoft Corp to stop one of the world's biggest cybercrime rings has succeeded in wiping out the malicious computer networks that the gang used, known as the Citadel Botnets. Microsoft's Digital Crimes Unit, with help from authorities in more than 80 countries, on Wednesday cut off the servers controlling as many as 5 million infected PCs that belonged to the Citadel cyber crime operation, which is believed to have stolen more than $500 million from bank accounts over the past 18 months. ...

By Dave Warner PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Rescue workers on Thursday ended their search for survivors of a downtown Philadelphia building collapse, a day after a structure under demolition collapsed on shoppers and staff at a neighboring thrift store, killing six people and injuring 14 others. The effort was called off at 4:30 p.m. EDT, following an around-the-clock search for life amid a mountain of crumbled concrete and splintered wood, said Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers. ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A prominent Democratic senator Thursday pushed for suspending duty-free privileges to Bangladesh, saying it would send a strong signal that the United States is serious about protecting workers after hundreds died in the global garment industry's worst accident.

NEW YORK (AP) — An afternoon rally on Wall Street gave the stock market its best day in nearly three weeks Thursday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Who gets the next donated organ is a life or death matter, and now a judge is allowing two dying children in Pennsylvania to essentially jump the line. It's an unprecedented challenge to the nation's transplant system that specialists say raises serious questions of fairness.

WASHINGTON (AP) — College students faced increasing uncertainty about the cost of new student loans after senators failed Thursday to advance partisan proposals to keep interest rates from doubling on July 1.

MISSOULA, Mont. (AP) — A Pennsylvania doctor on a guided fishing trip in southwestern Montana went home with an amazing tale of hauling in a 25-pound lunker — a baby moose she helped rescue from a rushing river.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A Canadian restaurant manager is the first poker aficionado to become a millionaire at this year's World Series of Poker in Las Vegas.

MOSCOW (AP) — Vladimir Putin pulled off one of his most audacious pieces of stagecraft, attending a ballet with his rarely seen wife and then announcing their marriage is over. But how will it play to his audience of 143 million Russians?

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey's prime minister was walking a political tightrope Thursday as he headed home from a four-day trip abroad to face massive anti-government protests that have mushroomed to dozens of cities across the country.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Representatives of U.S. intelligence agencies involved in a government program to gather Americans' telephone records went to Capitol Hill on Thursday to brief senators on the scheme. Robert Litt, general counsel of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; James Cole, the deputy attorney general; Sean Joyce, the deputy director of the FBI, and Chris Inglis, the deputy director of the National Security Agency, conducted the briefing, said Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. ...

By Mark Hosenball and John Whitesides WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama administration on Thursday defended its collection of the telephone records of millions of Americans as part of U.S. counterterrorism efforts, re-igniting a fierce debate over privacy even as it called the program critical to warding off an attack. The admission came after Britain's Guardian newspaper published on Wednesday a secret court order authorizing the collection of phone records generated by millions of Verizon Communications customers. ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal health experts are recommending changes to safety restrictions on former blockbuster diabetes pill Avandia, in light of a new analysis suggesting that the drug may not increase the risk of heart attack as previously believed.

DENVER (AP) — Former U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar will start work next week as a partner in an international law firm that will allow him to remain in his home state and work on cases involving the energy industry he once regulated.

By Kevin Yao BEIJING (Reuters) - China's new leaders have adopted a greater tolerance for a slowdown in the economy than their predecessors and are likely to allow quarterly growth to slip as far as 7 percent before triggering fresh stimulus to lift activity, sources say. The government of President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang has flagged for some time that the rapid GDP growth of the past three decades needed to shift down a gear as the economy moves towards consumer-led expansion. ...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — Tommy Rees is Notre Dame's starting quarterback again.