ALAMEDA — The U.S. Coast Guard on Monday began unloading more than 40,000 pounds of cocaine seized from three ships off the Central American coast, including one bust called the largest in U.S. maritime history.

WASHINGTON — Fewer benefits, more tax money and some accounting magic have bought an extra year of life for Social Security and Medicare, trustees of the government’s two largest benefit programs said Monday.

SAN JOSE — California continues to employ far more technology workers, pay higher wages and attract more venture capital than any other state. But the overall U.S. tech sector is also growing at a surprisingly brisk clip — for now.

ABUJA, Nigeria — A former chemistry professor hand-picked by President Olusegun Obasanjo won Nigeria’s presidential election in a landslide Monday, a vote denounced as deeply flawed by international observers and the opposition.

VENTURA — Californians have created plenty of surf spots by accident with harbor jetties, power plant outflows and even drainage pipes.

DARLINGTON, S.C. — A jury acquitted a convicted sex offender Monday of raping two teenage girls who police say escaped after they were left to die in an underground bunker he had built.

MOSCOW — Former President Boris Yeltsin, who hastened the collapse of the Soviet Union by scrambling atop a tank to rally opposition against a hard-line coup and later pushed Russia to embrace democracy and a market economy, died Monday at age 76.

SAN FRANCISCO — Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist David Halberstam was killed in a car crash Monday, a county coroner said. He was 73.

JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Ehud Olmert marked Israel’s Memorial Day for fallen soldiers Monday with a new call for peace with the Palestinians, saying his country was prepared to make “far-reaching compromises” and “very painful concessions.”

BLACKSBURG, Va.  — Chemistry professor Joe Merola tried to give a lecture Monday, but looking out at 100 Virginia Tech students’ faces — and the sweat shirt he’d placed on the seat of a wounded student — he couldn’t do it.

WASHINGTON — A historic veto showdown assured, Democratic leaders agreed Monday on legislation that requires the first U.S. combat troops to be withdrawn from Iraq by Oct. 1 with a goal of a complete pullout six months later.