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AMMAN (Reuters) - Britain closed its embassy in Jordan on Saturday because of fears of attacks on Westerners there, the Foreign Office said. The move comes two months after triple suicide bomb attacks on luxury hotels in Amman killed more than 50 people. Al Qaeda in Iraq, led by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility. Last August, Syrian militants linked to Zarqawi were accused b ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Charles Kennedy, leader of the Liberal Democrats, resigned on Saturday after support from his colleagues evaporated when he admitted he had treatment for alcohol abuse. "I am standing down as leader," he told a news conference at Liberal Democrat headquarters. "When nominations open (for the leadership) I shall not be putting my name forward." Kennedy, 46, decided to step down as leader of the Liberal Democrats after days of turmoil following his surprise announcement on Thu ...

LONDON (AP) -- The hip-hop singer Ms. Dynamite has been charged with punching an officer in face after police arrested her for allegedly kicking a nightclub's front door, police said Saturday. The musician, whose real name is Niomi McLean-Daley, was out celebrating her birthday with her brother early Friday. She allegedly became abusive when officers confronted her while she was kicking the front door of the Paragon Lounge nightclub in west London. Police said she was taken into custody and ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain closed its embassy in Jordan on Saturday because of fears about the security situation there, the Foreign Office said. "Terrorists may be in the final stages of planning attacks against Westerners and places frequented by Westerners," the Foreign Office Web site said. "The British Embassy in Amman will be closed until further notice due to the security situation."

WASHINGTON (AP) -- People are more likely these days to plan for their own death or talk to close relatives about the subject that many have long been inclined to avoid, a poll found. With the American population growing older and high-profile life-and-death cases in the news, more people are trying to come to grips with their own mortality. Three in 10 people, 29 percent, now say they have a li ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Police returned to a picturesque village on Saturday in a bid to find new clues to catch the killer of a retired army officer who was blasted with a shotgun on his doorstep two years ago. The death of 83-year-old lieutenant colonel Robert Riley Workman on January 7, 2004 set in motion a murder mystery with all the ingredients of an Agatha Christie thriller and detectives still  ...

ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (AP) -- A panel of linguists has decided the word that best reflects 2005 is "truthiness," defined as the quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts. The American Dialect Society chose the word Friday after a runoff with terms related to Hurricane Katrina, such as "Katrinagate," the scandal erupting from the lack of planning for the monster hurricane. Michael Adams, a professor at North Carolina State University who specializes  ...

TOKYO, Japan (AP) -- A U.S. sailor was arrested Saturday on robbery-murder charges in the killing of a Japanese woman, a Japanese police official said. The 21-year-old sailor was arrested after he was transferred to police from the U.S. Navy base in Yokosuka, about 30 miles southwest of Tokyo, a police official said on condition of anonymity, citing police branch policy. The U.S. military previo ...

BEIJING, China (AP) -- A farmer angry over a court ruling set off a bomb in a Chinese courthouse, killing himself and four other people, a news report said Saturday. The explosion Friday in Minle County in the northwestern province of Gansu killed the president of the county court and a local Communist Party official, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The bomber was identified as Qian Wenzha ...

LONDON (Reuters) - The preserved remains of two prehistoric men discovered in an Irish bog have revealed a couple of surprises --- one used hair gel and the other stood 6 foot 6 inches high, the tallest Iron Age body discovered. "He would have been a giant...the other man was quite short, about 5 foot 2 inches," said Ned Kelly, head of antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland. "The shorter  ...