NEW YORK (AP) — Nearly 200 years after Ludwig van Beethoven's death, researchers pulled DNA from strands of his hair, searching for clues about the health problems and hearing loss that plagued him.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is hearing a spirited dispute Wednesday between whiskey maker Jack Daniel’s and the manufacturer of a squeaking dog toy that parodies the liquor's bottle and label.

NEW YORK (AP) — For the first time in three decades, the U.S. has a new favorite dog breed, according to the American Kennel Club.

ST. LOUIS — St. Louis Zoo officials say they are working to find a way to keep an Andean bear named Ben inside his enclosure after he escaped Thursday for the second time this month.

CLEARFIELD, Pa. (AP) — The court-ordered release of a trove of government photos, videos, maps and other documents involving the FBI's secretive search for Civil War-era gold has a treasure hunter more convinced than ever of a coverup — and just as determined to prove it.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The dodo bird isn’t coming back anytime soon. Nor is the woolly mammoth. But a company working on technologies to bring back extinct species has attracted more investors, while other scientists are skeptical such feats are possible or a good idea.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Decades before the infamous Salem witch trials in Massachusetts, Alse Young was killed at the gallows in Connecticut, becoming the first person on record to be executed in the American colonies for witchcraft.

NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists discovered the oldest known DNA and used it to reveal what life was like 2 million years ago in the northern tip of Greenland. Today, it’s a barren Arctic desert, but back then it was a lush landscape of trees and vegetation with an array of animals, even the now e…

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (AP) — The ACLU of Missouri is suing a suburban Kansas City school district over its policy of automatically removing any challenged library material before it is reviewed.

DAYTONA BEACH SHORES, Fla. (AP) — Severe beach erosion from two late-season hurricanes has helped uncover what appears to be a wooden ship dating from the 1800s which had been buried under the sand on Florida's East Coast for up to two centuries, impervious to cars that drove daily on the be…

NEW YORK (AP) — Don’t look for plastic partitions or faraway benches when visiting Santa Claus this year. The jolly old elf is back, pre-pandemic style, and he’s got some pressing issues on his mind.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Good news for fans of “The Goonies:” the old Victorian home featured in the film is on sale in Astoria, Oregon, and potential buyers are considering making it more accessible to the public.

Researchers say they solved a decades-old riddle this week by finding remnants of the stockade and therefore the site of a prison camp in York, Pennsylvania, that housed British soldiers for nearly two years during the American Revolutionary War.

Our Medieval ancestors left us with a biological legacy: Genes that may have helped them survive the Black Death make us more susceptible to certain diseases today.

LONDON — U.S. President Joe Biden paid his respects at Queen Elizabeth II's coffin on Sunday as thousands of police, hundreds of British troops and an army of officials made final preparations for the queen's state funeral — a spectacular display of national mourning that will also be the bi…

Post Malone apologized to his St. Louis fans Sunday for an on-stage accident that sent him to the hospital and shortened his set the night before at the Enterprise Center.

NEW YORK (AP) — The 31,000-year-old skeleton of a young adult found in a cave in Indonesia that is missing its left foot and part of its left leg reveal the oldest known evidence of an amputation, according to a new study.

NEW YORK (AP) — A mint condition Mickey Mantle baseball card sold for $12.6 million Sunday, blasting into the record books as the most ever paid for sports memorabilia in a market that has grown exponentially more lucrative in recent years.

Jeff Bohnert had all but given up on seeing his poodle-hound mix again after she went missing in early June. Two months later, he got a text from a neighbor: People exploring a nearby cave found a dog. Could it be Abby?

A chronology of events in the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa, former president of the Teamsters union:

DETROIT (AP) — The FBI found no evidence of missing Teamsters boss Jimmy Hoffa during a search of land under a New Jersey bridge, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

LONDON (AP) — Britain shattered its record for highest temperature ever registered Tuesday amid a heat wave that has seared swaths of Europe, as the U.K.'s national weather forecaster said such highs are now a fact of life in a country ill-prepared for such extremes.

LONDON (AP) — A previously unknown self-portrait of Vincent Van Gogh has been discovered behind another of the artist's paintings, the National Galleries of Scotland said Thursday.

ROME (AP) — Italy has been so successful in recovering ancient artworks and artifacts that were illegally exported from the country it has created a museum for them.

MARSEILLE, France (AP) — A permanent virtual exhibit of one of France’s most famous prehistoric sites, the undersea Cosquer Cave, is set to open its doors as concerns grow that it could be completely inundated as a result of rising tides driven by climate change.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress held its first hearing in half a century Tuesday on unidentified flying objects. And no, there is still no government confirmation of extraterrestrial life.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — National park rangers in Alaska on Friday located the body of the year’s first registered climber on North America’s tallest peak.

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A marble bust that a Texas woman bought for about $35 from a Goodwill store is temporarily on display at a San Antonio museum after experts determined it was a centuries-old sculpture missing from Germany since World War II.

SANTA CRUZ XOCHITEPEC (AP) — Dozens of men strained and struggled as they hefted a huge cross adorned with colorful ribbons and trudged down a steep hill in a yearly ceremony of the Day of the Cross celebrated in the Mexico City neighborhood of Santa Cruz Xochitepec.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Police were investigating after mushroom hunters discovered a body in a rural, hand-dug water well in south-central Missouri.

MEXICO CITY (AP) — When Mexican police found a pile of about 150 skulls in a cave near the Guatemalan border, they thought they were looking at a crime scene, and took the bones to the state capital.

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — Pamela Smart, a former high school employee convicted of recruiting her teenage lover to kill her husband, was denied a sentence reduction hearing Wednesday, more than 30 years after a sensational trial that inspired books and a Nicole Kidman movie.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A Southern California man is accused of smuggling more than 1,700 reptiles — including baby crocodiles and Mexican beaded lizards — into the U.S. since 2016, authorities said Thursday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists have figured out why vampire bats are the only mammals that can survive on a diet of just blood.

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — A gemstone, billed as one of the largest gem-quality opals in existence, was sold for $143,750 at auction in Alaska on Sunday.

POMPEII, Italy (AP) — In a few horrible hours, Pompeii was turned from a vibrant city into an ash-embalmed wasteland, smothered by a furious volcanic eruption in A.D. 79.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama welcomes visitors at the “First White House of the Confederacy,” a historic home next to the state Capitol where Confederate President Jefferson Davis lived with his family in the early months of the Civil War.

DANVILLE, Pa. (AP) — A truck carrying about 100 monkeys was involved in a crash Friday in Pennsylvania, state police said as authorities searched for at least three of the monkeys that appeared to have escaped the vehicle.

Deep in the South Pacific, scientists have explored a rare stretch of pristine corals shaped like roses off the coast of Tahiti. The reef is thought to be one of the largest found at such depths and seems untouched by climate change or human activities.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Her husband campaigned to help unite the country, but Jill Biden says “healing” a nation wounded by a deadly pandemic, natural and other disasters and deep political polarization is among her chief roles as first lady, too.

AMSTERDAM (AP) — A cold case team that combed through evidence for five years in a bid to unravel one of World War II's enduring mysteries has reached what it calls the “most likely scenario” of who betrayed Jewish teenage diarist Anne Frank and her family.

DETROIT (AP) — California prosecutors have filed two counts of vehicular manslaughter against the driver of a Tesla on Autopilot who ran a red light, slammed into another car and killed two people in 2019.

ELLIOTT, Iowa (AP) — A coalition of California restaurants and grocery stores has filed a lawsuit to block implementation of a new farm animal welfare law, adding to uncertainty about whether bacon and other fresh pork products will be much more expensive or in short supply in the state when…

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Speaking publicly for the first time in months, the prominent South Carolina attorney accused of a slew of mostly financial crimes after his wife and son were found shot dead outside their home blamed some of his problems on a 20-year-long opiate addiction shortly befor…