Nation and World News

WASHINGTON – For the first time, the government is publicly revealing how much hospitals charge, and the differences are astounding: Some bill tens of thousands of dollars more than others for the same treatment, even within the same city.

WASHINGTON – Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel demanded more information Wednesday after the Air Force removed 17 launch officers from duty at a nuclear missile base in North Dakota over what a commander called "rot" in the force. The Air Force struggled to explain, acknowledging concern about an "attitude problem" but telling Congress the weapons were secure.

CLEVELAND – One neighbor says a naked woman was seen crawling on her hands and knees in the backyard of the house a few years ago. Another heard pounding on the home's doors and noticed plastic bags over the windows.

BEIRUT – The Syrian regime Tuesday dispatched an obscure proxy, a Damascus-based Palestinian militant group, to threaten retaliation for two Israeli airstrikes over the weekend.

WASHINGTON – Landmark immigration legislation is doomed to fail in Congress unless border-security provisions are greatly strengthened, Republican senators bluntly warned on Tuesday.

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Minnesota appears poised to legalize gay marriage, as the Democratic speaker of the state House said Tuesday that a gay marriage bill endorsed by the governor and likely to pass in the state Senate also now has enough backing in his chamber.

NEW YORK – The Dow Jones industrial average is punching through another milestone: its first close above 15,000.

WASHINGTON – A survey shows U.S. home prices rose 10.5 percent in March compared with a year ago, the biggest gain since March 2006.

WASHINGTON – A new Pentagon study shows that the number of sexual assaults reported by members of the military rose from 3,192 to 3,374 in 2012, while the department estimates that as many as 26,000 service members were assaulted, based on anonymous surveys, officials said Tuesday.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – First came the tapping. Over the blasting music, limo driver Orville Brown heard someone in the backseat crowd of partying women knock on the partition behind him, saying something about smoke. No smoking allowed, he told them.

BEIRUT – From Israel’s perspective, its airstrikes near Damascus were more about Iran than Syria: Tehran’s shipment of guided missiles destroyed in the weekend attacks would have posed a potent threat had the weapons reached Iranian proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon.

BOSTON – A Massachusetts funeral director said Monday he has received burial offers from out-of-state cemeteries for the body of a Boston Marathon bombing suspect who was killed in a gun battle with police, even as Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s mother told him she wants the body returned to Russia.

MINNEAPOLIS – The FBI believes authorities disrupted a terrorism attack that was being planned in a small western Minnesota city when they arrested a man after converging on a mobile home that contained Molotov cocktails, suspected pipe bombs and firearms, the agency said Monday.

LOS ANGELES – Iron Man reigns as the standard-bearer of Hollywood superheroes with a $175.3 million domestic opening weekend for his latest sequel and an overseas haul of a half-billion dollars in less than two weeks.