Fort Worth Star-Telegram: World

By JACOB ADELMAN Home sales in the San Francisco Bay Area plummeted 22.8 percent last month from the previous year to reach their lowest level in 15 years, a tracking firm reported Thursday.San Diego-based MDA DataQuick said the drop from 8,771 homes in July 2009 to 6,773 homes last month came as the market adjusted to the end of federal tax credits for first-time buyers.Last month was the slowest July since 1995, when just under 6,666 homes were sold in the nine-county region, the firm said.

By SETH BORENSTEIN A 22-mile-long invisible mist of oil is meandering far below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, where it will probably loiter for months or more, scientists reported Thursday in the first conclusive evidence of an underwater plume from the BP spill.The most worrisome part is the slow pace at which the oil is breaking down in the cold, 40-degree water, making it a long-lasting but unseen threat to vulnerable marine life, experts said.Earlier this month, top federal officials declared the oil in the spill was mostly "gone," and it is gone in the sense you can't

By GILLIAN FLACCUS A jury Thursday convicted a 57-year-old man of the torture-murder of his adult daughter, whose body was kept in a freezer for two years.The Orange County Superior Court jury found Clarence Butterfield guilty of first-degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon, and also found true special circumstances of murder with mayhem and murder with torture.He faces a term of life in prison without the possibility of parole when he is sentenced on Oct.

By BETH HARRIS Olympic champion Michael Phelps has failed to make the 400-meter individual medley final at the Pan Pacific championships.Phelps had the fourth-fastest time of 4 minutes, 15.38 seconds in Thursday morning's preliminaries, but only two swimmers per country are allowed in the evening final.World champion Ryan Lochte of the U.S.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

President Barack Obama is urging Republican leaders to stop blocking the jobs bill stalled in Congress.Speaking at the White House, the president said there would be plenty of time for politics but that this issue should not fall victim to partisanship.His brief remarks Thursday followed more bad economic news.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

By TALI ARBEL A private research group said its gauge of future economic activity edged up in July, suggesting growth will be sluggish for the rest of the year.The Conference Board said Thursday that its index of leading economic indicators rose 0.1 percent last month after dropping 0.3 percent in June.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

By STEPHEN BERNARD Stock futures are falling after a disappointing report on weekly claims for jobless benefits.The Labor Department says initial claims for unemployment benefits jumped by 12,000 to 500,000 last week.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share

At least two carriages of a passenger train fell into a river Thursday after floods knocked out a bridge in southwestern China, but there were no fatalities, state media reported.The accident happened in Guanghan, a city about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the Sichuan provincial capital of Chengdu, when floods loosened piers on the Shitingjiang bridge, the official Xinhua News Agency said.The website of the provincial propaganda department said no fatalities were reported by railway officials.The train was traveling from Xi'an in northwestern Shaanxi province to Kunming

By NAHAL TOOSI The United States will increase its aid to flood-ravaged Pakistan to $150 million, U.S. Sen. John Kerry said Thursday, stressing that Washington did not want Islamist extremism to increase on the back of the crisis.The floods have affected 20 million people and 1/5 of the country, straining its civilian government as it struggles against al-Qaida and Taliban violence.

Roger Federer says there a little bit of magic at work in his trick-shot video that has drawn more than 1.2 million views on YouTube.The video shows Federer knocking a metal can off a man's head with a serve while shooting an ad for Gillette.More | Talk | Read It Later | Share