AUSTRALIA'S football revolution will take another step next season with Gold Coast Galaxy and the Townsville-based Northern Thunder set to be included in an expanded A-League.

NEWCASTLE Jets and Queensland Roar will be playing for high stakes in the A-League preliminary final, but coaches Gary van Egmond and Frank Farina are happy to rely on their 'kids'.

ENGLISH wing-back Joseph Keenan has been assured of his future with Melbourne Victory, despite being left out of the club's Asian Champions League squad.

NEWCASTLE Jets captain Jade North has delivered a simple message to his teammates: "We'll bounce back."

SYDNEY FC's aggressive recruiting campaign for next season continues, with Adelaide United striker Dez Giraldi looking for a reunion with his former coach John Kosmina.

ROMA captain and talisman Francesco Totti has claimed that league leaders Inter Milan are consistently benefiting from some dubious refereeing decisions.

NEW YORK - A major service outage afflicted users of the popular, addictive BlackBerry smart phones across the United States and Canada on Monday, wireless carriers said. Officials with AT&T Inc. and Verizon Wireless said BlackBerry maker Research in Motion

Christopher Sauceda served his country in Iraq, then gave life to a 14-year-old boy at home. But the former Army sergeant, who now installs air conditioners in San Antonio, is surprised that people consider him a hero. Facing a battery

Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, riding a tide of momentum, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who is seeking to stop him somewhere and somehow, will launch TV ads in Ohio and Texas, which hold crucial primaries in three weeks. The Democrats

ARSENAL opened a five-point gap at the top of the Barclays Premier League by defeating Blackburn Rovers 2-0 at the Emirates Stadium.

The Miramichi Regional Health Authority is auditing about 15,000 tests such as cancer biopsies analyzed by a former pathologist, work that is now under police investigation.

Congressional colleagues and U.S. President George Bush expressed sadness at the death of Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif., saying he was a man of character.

The U.S. Postal Service in Washington announced that the price for a 1-ounce first-class stamp will rise to 42 cents on May 12.

A restraining order against Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, because of her quest to offer paper ballots to voters on March 4, has been overturned.

A New York man who innocently spent 22 1/2 years in prison filed a $22.5 million lawsuit against the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office and New York police.

Two streetcars collided head-on Monday in New Orleans, injuring 23 people, said Regional Transit Authority spokeswoman Rosalind Cook.

Historians from an Illinois organization are trying to compile a record of everything that was handwritten by Abraham Lincoln or intended for him.

A $70 billion budget item plus several supplemental funding requests will help pay for the U.S. war in Iraqi, the White House said Monday.

Suffolk, Va., firefighters kept busy over the weekend, combating a series of wildfires brought on by gusting winds.

Firefighters from Fulton, Ga., and Atlanta fought together Monday to put out a suspicious warehouse fire in the Fulton Industrial District.