The piano used for the song "As Times Goes By" in the classic 1942 film "Casablanca" has fetched more than $600,000 at auction.

The 58-key upright was sold to an unidentified buyer for $602,500 at Sotheby's New York on Friday.

A man took a bus from Wisconsin to Nashville, climbed a fence at a home linked to singer Taylor Swift on Friday and told police he was there to surprise a woman on her birthday, authorities said. He is jailed on a trespassing charge.

The singer, who is overseas, turned 23 Thursday. Court documents show 24-year-old Jacob Nicholas Kulke, of Marshfield, Wis., was arrested early Friday after climbing a fence and secured gate.

The Obama administration on Friday imposed a new air quality standard that reduces by 20 percent the maximum amount of soot released into the air from smokestacks, diesel trucks and other sources of pollution in its first major regulation since the Nov. 6 election.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson said the new standard will save thousands of lives each year and reduce the burden of illness in communities across the country, as people "benefit from the simple fact of being able to breathe cleaner air."

A substitute teacher from California was found to be the only heir to a fortune of gold coins discovered by a cleaning crew in the home of a reclusive cousin who quietly stashed away a treasure of more than $7 million before he died this year.

A court hearing in Carson City is scheduled Tuesday, when a judge is expected to certify first cousin Arlene Magdanz as the lone heir to the treasure valued at $7.4 million found in the home of Walter Samaszko Jr., Carson City Clerk-Recorder Alan Glover told the Nevada Appeal.

To millions of people, the Christmas tree is a cheerful sight. To scientists who decipher the DNA codes of plants and animals, it's a monster.

We're talking about the conifer, the term for cone-bearing trees like the spruce, fir, pine, cypress and cedar. Apart from their holiday popularity, they play big roles in the lumber industry and in healthy forest ecosystems.

The company that owns a luxury jet that crashed and killed Mexican pop superstar Jenni Rivera is under investigation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

It has had two planes seized by the agency this year.

Nearly 4 out of 5 Americans now think temperatures are rising and that global warming will be a serious problem for the United States if nothing is done about it, a new Associated Press-GfK poll finds.

Belief and worry about climate change are inching up among Americans in general, but concern is growing faster among people who don't often trust scientists on the environment. In follow-up interviews, some of those doubters said they believe their own eyes as they've watched thermometers rise, New York City subway tunnels flood, polar ice melt and Midwestern farm fields dry up.

Nearly everywhere around the world, people are living longer and fewer children are dying. But increasingly, people are grappling with the diseases and disabilities of modern life, according to the most expansive global look so far at life expectancy and the biggest health threats.

The last comprehensive study was in 1990 and the top health problem then was the death of children under 5 — more than 10 million each year. Since then, campaigns to vaccinate kids against diseases like polio and measles have reduced the number of children dying to about 7 million.

AC Milan beat second-division Reggina 3-0 Thursday night to set up a showdown with Serie A leader Juventus in the Italian Cup quarterfinals.

Colombian defender Mario Yepes put Milan ahead in the 51st minute on a snowy night at San Siro, 17-year-old French forward M'Baye Niang doubled the lead in the 79th and Giampaolo Pazzini added a goal in the 81st.

Brazilian authorities on Thursday began investigations into allegations that security personnel beat members of a visiting Argentine football club at the halftime of the Copa Sudamericana.

South American football officials described it as the most serious incident in decades in the country that will host the 2014 World Cup — raising fears about Brazil's ability to secure the event and putting a blemish on the country's reputation just months before the Confederations Cup.