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Your car insurance rate can go down, if you shop

The typical American driver will pay less for auto insurance this year than in 2006, according to the Insurance Information Institute. This is the first decrease in insurance premiums since 1999.

But the average annual cost for car insurance is still a hefty $847 (it was $851 in 2006).

There are ways to bring down your costs:

• Shop around for insurance quotes. Get estimates from at least three places.

• Consider insurance costs when buying a car. Some cars just cost more to insure.

• See if buying your homeowners and auto insurance from the same company is cheaper.

• Raise your deductible. But be sure you can afford to pay it if you have an accident.

• Ask for discounts.

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State Farm gives out dividends

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. announced Thursday that slightly more than 1 million policyholders in Missouri will receive a share of $21.8 million in dividends. State Farm will distribute $1.25 billion nationwide.

Each policyholder in Missouri will receive 7.3 percent of their semi-annual premium, an average of $22 per vehicle insured, a State Farm press release said.

Tia Lindell, a State Farm spokeswoman, said the dividend was a result of fewer losses than the company anticipated when it estimated premiums last year as well as a higher return on its investments.

The last time State Farm paid out dividends was in 2000.

Lindell said because it is a mutual fund company, the dividends pay directly to policyholders.

Our policyholders are like our stockholders, she said.

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Pentagon transcripts: Suspected Nine-Eleven mastermind confesses during hearing

WASHINGTON The man believed to be the mastermind of Nine-Eleven is said to have confessed to the attack and others.

That's according to court documents from a military hearing held for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (HAH'-leed shayk moh-HAH'-med) at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

According to transcripts released by the Pentagon, Mohammed claimed responsibility for planning, financing, and training others for a list of attacks. They ranged from the 1993 attack at the World Trade Center to the attempt by would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight with explosives hidden in his shoes.

In all, Mohammed said he was responsible for planning 29 individual attacks, including many that were never executed.

Some information on the transcripts was blacked out.

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press.

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Bus life: The other side of college sports

It is 11 hours of red dirt, flat land and two-lane highways from Texas A&M-Kingsville to Eastern New Mexico, and the best way to do it is by night. This is where they separate the shoe deals from the Hardee's meals, on a crowded bus with 40 college athletes, a driver named Pete and snoring giants.

This is life on the road in small-college athletics.

"You learn a little more about the guy sitting across from you or next to you," said D.R. Coleman, a fullback at Kingsville. "It makes you appreciate them more."

The bus carrying the Bluffton University baseball team that crashed early Friday morning in Atlanta could have come from almost any school, any sport, anywhere -- Kingsville, Texas, or Hanover, Ind., or Bellevue, Neb. A bus is the mode of transportation for the majority of money-strapped small-college programs that don't fall under the letters BCS.

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Women take the wheel in car buying

When Jennifer Schwanberg graduated with a doctorate in clinical psychology last year, she felt a reward was in line.

"I just decided as a graduation present to myself I would get a new car," she said.

She knew what she wanted: safety, high gas mileage, a five-speed transmission and a sunroof. The 54-year-old St. Cloud woman found it last month in a 2007 periwinkle Forester

With increasing numbers of women staying single longer, working outside the home and earning higher wages, more women are taking control of the car-buying experience.

"I see more women involved because there is a lot of independence and shared decision-making with relationships," said Patty Yarbrough, owner of McKay's Family Chrysler Jeep Dodge in St. Cloud. "It's been going on for years."

National statistics now show women buy 50 percent of new cars and 48 percent of used cars.

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Clijsters plays Key Biscayne for the final time

KEY BISCAYNE – One more Key Biscayne before she retires later this year. One more trademark split as she races to her forehand corner to retrieve a ball.

And, of course, before Kim Clijsters departs this place for the last time, one more hug for the woman handing out towels in the locker room, for the security guards she has befriended over the years, for the drivers who get players back and forth to their hotels and for a great number of other people at the Sony Ericsson Open, who are annually amazed that one of the world's finest tennis players could care this much about ordinary people.

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