SAN DIEGO (AP) -- A 17-year-old pleaded guilty Friday to murdering a Border Patrol agent who was shot eight times in head, neck and torso in the mountains east of San Diego....

KENNETT, Mo. (AP) -- A jury is deliberating the fate of a black school teacher charged with assaulting white police officers in Missouri...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- A key U.N. committee approved a resolution Friday urging Iran to halt the persecution of political opponents following the country's disputed presidential election and release those still detained....

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) -- A 5-year-old North Carolina girl was raped and killed the same day she was taken from her home, according to an arrest warrant released Friday. Shaniya Davis was sexually assaulted and asphyxiated Nov. 10, the day her mother reported her missing from the trailer park where she was staying, according to the warrant. Authorities embarked on a nearly weeklong search that ended when the girl's body was found dumped off a rural road....

MIAMI (AP) -- The ringleader of a group described by prosecutors as plotting terror attacks on Chicago's Sears Tower and FBI offices in hopes of sparking an anti-government insurrection was sentenced Friday to 13 1/2 years in prison by a federal judge....

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A Pennsylvania university's requirement that overweight undergraduates take a fitness course to receive their degrees has raised the hackles of students and the eyebrows of health and legal experts....

BRUNSWICK, Maine (AP) -- The rumble of Navy patrol aircraft flying overhead will soon be a thing of the past as the remaining P-3 Orions depart from Brunswick Naval Air Station....

SCRANTON, Pa. (AP) -- Two former Pennsylvania judges accused of taking kickbacks to supply private detention facilities with juveniles have been granted partial immunity from civil liability....

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The decision to move Johannes Mehserle's trial to Los Angeles County is a setback for the former transit officer charged with killing an unarmed man on New Year's Day....

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- South Carolina lawmakers plan to formally consider impeaching Gov. Mark Sanford for the first time next week, the chairman of the committee beginning that work said Friday....

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- An attorney for a condemned killer says Ohio's new lethal-injection plan is so untested it would amount to human experimentation if used for the first time next month....

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- An independent panel says the United States can extend the life of aging nuclear weapons for decades with existing programs, a finding that activists contend means there's no need for the nation to design replacements for the nuclear arsenal....

SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- An attorney for the Army psychiatrist charged in the mass shooting at Fort Hood says his client will have his first court hearing in his hospital room on Saturday....

NEW YORK (AP) -- Whether he's planning another run for the White House or a bid for senator or governor, or he just misses the spotlight, Rudy Giuliani is suddenly back and talking about the topic that made him a national star - Sept. 11....

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AP) -- The Pacific resort island of Saipan was reeling Saturday from one of the most violent attacks in its history, when a gunman killed five people, including two small children and himself, in a rampage that ended at a World War II historical site....

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) -- The Catholic Diocese of Wilmington is obligated to pay retirement benefits to six priests who are confirmed pedophiles, church officials argued in a bankruptcy court filing seeking permission to keep making the payments....

NEW YORK (AP) -- A prison system official says a New York City man is free after spending nearly two decades behind bars for murder before a judge declared him innocent....

NIKISKI, Alaska (AP) -- Norm Olson's genial tone belies his reputation as a radical militiaman, yet here he is, at 63, an affable grandfather explaining why Americans should arm themselves against their government....

PHOENIX (AP) -- A 2-year-old boy dragged a 1-year-old Arizona girl Friday from a house fire that killed her mother and injured two other adults, authorities said....

PEEKSKILL, N.Y. (AP) -- A New York state man has been convicted of reckless endangerment after leaving his 85-year-old father in a car on a hot day and finding him dead three hours later....

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- A teenager accused of killing a 9-year-old neighbor should be sent to a psychiatric hospital because she shows signs of severe depression and anxiety, her attorney said....

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- An Indianapolis man convicted of killing three children and four adults during a home invasion robbery three years ago has been sentenced to life in prison without parole....

OZARK, Ark. (AP) -- The FBI has dispatched investigators to Arkansas to look into a police officer's use of a stun gun on a 10-year-old girl who refused to take a shower....

BETHEL, Alaska (AP) -- An air taxi with eight people aboard made an emergency landing on tundra when the engine failed near Alaska's Bering Sea coast....

AVALON, Calif. (AP) -- Birth control for bison?...

PEORIA, Ariz. (AP) -- An Arizona family is pleading with burglars to return a wooden music box containing the ashes of their 5-month old son....

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) -- As the nation's military academies try to recruit more minorities, they aren't getting much help from members of Congress from big-city districts with large numbers of blacks, Hispanics and Asians....

PLEASANT HILL, Mo. (AP) -- A woman who had been charged with child endangerment after almost 370 animals were seized from her Missouri farm has been placed on two years of unsupervised probation....

A list of congressional districts with the fewest military academy nominations for the classes of 2009 to 2013, the officeholders and the total nominations they have made. All 20 are Democrats from districts where whites make up less than half the population, and all but two of the districts include major urban areas....

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- Santa's "elves" at the North Pole have been given their walking papers - but they're not going quietly....

New England was expected to see another dreary day, while the Pacific Northwest remains under wintry conditions on Friday....

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- This city did not wait for Washington's health care overhaul. Most uninsured adults here are already reaping the benefits of a government-run health care program - seeing doctors, filling prescriptions, and getting surgeries they could not otherwise afford....

NILE, Wash. (AP) -- A gigantic landslide that buried a highway, uprooted homes and rerouted a river in Washington state's Cascade Range left hundreds of smaller victims: fish....

Jeanne-Claude...

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Three people were arrested on suspicion of killing an off-duty Las Vegas police officer in a shootout in his garage, North Las Vegas police said Thursday....

NEW YORK (AP) -- An interactive exhibit featuring life-size models of Leonardo da Vinci's 500-year-old inventions and machines is opening in New York City's Times Square....

HONOLULU (AP) -- A former B-2 stealth bomber engineer accused of spying for China suffers from narcissistic personality disorder, expert witnesses for the prosecution and the defense testified in federal court Thursday....

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- A key U.N. committee expressed "very serious concern" Thursday at widespread reports of torture and other grave human rights violations in North Korea and strongly urged the government to put an end to the violations....

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) -- A New Jersey man who's been battling in Brazilian courts to get custody of his 9-year-old son is scheduled to testify before a congressional human rights panel in Washington....

Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad:...

WEST CHESTER, Pa. (AP) -- A former assistant fire chief accused of setting two small fires in an arson-plagued steel town near Philadelphia has worked out a plea bargain freeing him from jail....

NEW YORK (AP) -- A U.S.-trained scientist accused of shooting at FBI agents and helping al-Qaida vowed Thursday to boycott her January trial....

HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) -- Inmate Robert Lee Thompson was executed Thursday evening for his part in a fatal Houston store holdup after the Texas governor rejected a parole board's recommendation to spare him because he wasn't the gunman....

BALTIMORE (AP) -- A judge in Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon's theft trial told jurors they must stop deliberating and asking questions after he dismisses them for the day....

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- Prosecutors can retry an ex-sailor who received a conditional pardon from Virginia's governor after spending 11 years in prison for the rape and murder of a fellow sailor's wife, a federal judge ruled Thursday....

WESTMINSTER, Colo. (AP) -- A shootout left two bank robbery suspects dead and two police officers wounded Thursday in suburban Denver, police said....

NEW YORK (AP) -- Promising "you haven't seen the last of me," a 70-year-old disbarred lawyer convicted in a terrorism case surrendered to U.S. marshals Thursday to begin serving her prison term after a New York appeals court upheld her conviction....

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- When an ambulance brought Daniel Webb home from the hospital after he hurt his knee in March, paramedics warned the then 550-pound man he probably wouldn't be able to get up from his recliner if they put him there, his wife said....

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) -- Several family members who say they were sexually abused as children by adult relatives remember being taken to various locations and photographed with naked men, police investigators said in a search warrant released Thursday....

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- California's public university system on Thursday agreed to fully reopen a troubled South Los Angeles hospital that was partially closed in 2007 after deadly lapses in care....