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A British publisher launched an unusual book Monday — an authorized history of MI5, the British domestic intelligence agency. It's the first authorized history of any Western intelligence agency, and allowing an academic to write it and comb through the agency's files has raised some questions about why the agency's secrets shouldn't be kept secret.

Rescue workers are trying to find survivors from Wednesday's earthquake that hit Indonesia, killing more than 1,000 people. BBC reporter Rachel Harvey, who is in Padang, a city of 900,000 people, says parts of the city are unaffected while other parts are devastated.

An earthquake early Tuesday in the south Pacific sent tsunami waves crashing into Samoa and American Samoa. Charles McCreery, director of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center, says he isn't sure if the warning reached people in time. But, he says, there would have been natural warning signs of a tsunami.

A federal grand jury in New York has charged Najibullah Zazi, a 24-year-old Denver-area man, with conspiring to set off bombs in the United States. Zazi appeared in federal court in Denver Thursday. The new indictment raises the stakes in the terror case that first went public last week.

A native of Beijing, author Diane Liang sometimes simplifies some of the Chinese names and details in her books for the benefit of her foreign audience. Nevertheless, her fiction is still steeped in the sights and sounds of her homeland.

As summer vacations draw to a close and school-age children begin the mad scramble to fulfill their summer reading obligations, author Lesley M. M. Blume recommends a few timeless books that may not be on the required book lists.

The Senate Judiciary committee voted 13-6 Tuesday to approve Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. All the Democrats on the committee voted for her along with one Republican, Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

Writer Gabriel Cohen bases his Detective Jack Leightner series in Brooklyn, where he says the neighborhoods "are not static at all. The lines where things are changing create conflict and sometimes create violence," which is reflected in his books.

FBI agents fanned out across northern New Jersey today and made arrests in a corruption investigation that includes two mayors. Officials say politics and religion were used to cloak crimes and enrich the suspects.

The federal minimum wage will rise Friday 70 cents to $7.25. Conservative economists say it will kill jobs; liberals say it will boost consumer spending, which will help the economy.