A magnitude-7.1 earthquake struck central Chile Sunday night, the strongest and longest that many people said they had felt since a huge quake devastated the area two years ago. Some people were injured by falling ceiling material, but there were no reports of major damage or deaths due to quake-related accidents.

The quake struck at 7:30 p.m. about 16 miles (27 kilometers) north-northwest of Talca, a city of more than 200,000 people where residents said the shaking lasted about a minute.

Military investigators suspect that the U.S. soldier charged with premeditated murder over the killings of 17 Afghan civilians committed the shootings in two separate operations, The New York Times reported Sunday.

Citing an unnamed U.S. official, the newspaper said the investigators believed that the soldier, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, left his base and carried out the first set of killings, returned to the combat outpost and then, sometime later that evening, went out and attacked a second village.

A NASA spacecraft in orbit around the moon has sent back five dozen new images of the lunar surface including a view of the far side with Earth in the distance.

Don't thank scientists for it. Fourth-graders from an elementary school in Montana directed the spacecraft to snap pictures as part of a project headed by Sally Ride, the first American woman in space.

North Korea may have the bomb, but it hasn't perfected ways to put one onto a missile that could strike faraway enemies like the United States.

This is why Pyongyang's announcement that it will launch a satellite on a long-range rocket next month is drawing so much attention: Washington says North Korea uses these launches as cover for testing missile systems for nuclear weapons that could target Alaska and beyond.

Electric car owners who prided themselves on being green now find themselves in a bind as Japan's government maneuvers to restart dozens of nuclear power plants idled after last year's meltdowns.

For decades, nuclear generation has been a crucial source of power here. But the tsunami-triggered meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant have spurred a national debate over how to supply Japan's electricity in the future.

A discarded chunk of a Russian rocket missed the International Space Station early Saturday. However, it came close enough to force six astronauts to seek shelter in escape capsules.

NASA says the space junk was barely close enough to be a threat. Had it hit, however, the station could have been dangerous. So the astronauts — two Americans, three Russians and a Dutchman — woke early and went into two Soyuz vehicles ready to rocket back to Earth just in case.

A prehistoric monster snake is making a quick stopover in New York City's Grand Central Terminal.

The full-scale replica of the Titanoboa was unveiled Thursday as a promotion for an exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

Facebook is warning employers not to demand the passwords of job applicants, saying that it's an invasion of privacy that opens companies to legal liabilities.

The social networking company is also threatening legal action.

France's president proposed a sweeping new law Thursday that would see repeat visitors to extremist web sites put behind bars — one of several tough measures floated in the wake of a murderous shooting spree.

The proposed rules, unveiled by Nicolas Sarkozy after the death of an Islamist fanatic wanted for a horrifying series of execution-style murders, have alarmed journalists and legal experts, who say they risk pulling the plug on free expression.

China will abolish the transplanting of organs from executed prisoners within five years and try to spur more citizens to donate, a top health official says.

Rights groups call transplants from condemned prisoners a form of abuse and allege that the government, which executes far more people than any other nation, pressures them to donate organs. The government, however, says prisoners volunteer, and that the change is being made because prisoners are less healthy than the general population.