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MIAMI (AP) - Dwyane Wade and LeBron James were only a few miles away from Treyvon Martin on Feb. 26, participating in the NBA All-Star game on the night the unarmed black teenager wearing a hooded sweat shirt was shot to death by a neighborhood crime-watch volunteer.

They never knew ...

DENVER — A law student who made headlines when radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh criticized her opinion on contraception health coverage is in Denver to speak at a health care panel.

Sandra Fluke landed in the spotlight when she appeared before Congress testifying about her troubles paying for contraception ...

ABERDEEN TOWNSHIP, N.J. — A New Jersey school superintendent says there's no policy against hugging in the district, and says the issue of middle schoolers being told by their principal not to hug each other anymore is being blown out of proportion.

The district says Matawan-Aberdeen Middle School Principal Tyler ...

ENTEBBE, Uganda — The African Union will send 5,000 soldiers to join the hunt for rebel leader Joseph Kony in a new military mission officials say is necessary to remove the Lord's Resistance Army from Central Africa's vast jungle.

The mission is to be launched in South Sudan on Saturday ...

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) — The investigation into last month's shooting death of an unarmed black teenager in an Orlando suburb is out of the hands of the beleaguered police chief and the county prosecutor with the Justice Department looking at possible civil rights violations and a grand jury perhaps considering ...

NEW YORK — Undercover NYPD officers attended meetings of liberal political organizations and kept intelligence files on activists who planned protests around the country, according to interviews and documents that show how police have used counterterrorism tactics to monitor even lawful activities.

The infiltration echoes the tactics the NYPD used ...

SANFORD, Fla. — The police chief and prosecutor who have been bitterly criticized for not arresting a neighborhood watch volunteer in the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager both left the case Thursday, with the chief saying that he is temporarily leaving his job to let passions cool.

MADISON, WIS. — About the only thing Kevin Flynn enjoys more than drinking his home-brewed beer is sharing it with fellow beer-club members at festivals and tasting competitions. So Mr. Flynn and his buddies were shocked to discover that Wisconsin law prohibits sharing homemade suds anywhere outside the brewer's ...

DALLAS — At least five high-ranking executives with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure breast cancer charity have resigned in the aftermath of the organization's decision, promptly rescinded, to eliminate its funding for Planned Parenthood.

The departures include three officials from Komen's Dallas headquarters, as well as CEOs ...

CALIFORNIA

Whitney Houston died from drowning, coroner says

LOS ANGELES | Whitney Houston died from drowning in a hotel bathtub, but coroner's officials said Thursday that heart disease and chronic cocaine use were contributing factors to the singer's death.

The release of autopsy findings ends weeks of speculation about what ...

Education Secretary Arne Duncan used Thursday's appearance before a key House subcommittee to not only defend the Obama administration's request for a $1.7 billion increase in school funding for fiscal 2013, but also to rip the GOP budget proposal laid out by Rep. Paul Ryan earlier this week.

"However well-intentioned, ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military intends to tell Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales Friday he faces 17 counts of murder and six counts of attempted murder, along with other charges, in connection with a shooting rampage in two southern Afghanistan villages that shocked Americans back home and further roiled ...

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) — The parents of an unarmed black teenager who was shot to death by a neighborhood watch volunteer say they are not satisfied that the Sanford police chief is temporarily stepping down.

Tracy and Sybrina Martin told hundreds of supporters at a rally Thursday that they want ...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A defrocked Philadelphia priest pleaded guilty Thursday to a sex-abuse charge, just days before a landmark priest abuse trial is set to start.

Edward Avery, 69, pleaded guilty to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and conspiracy to endanger the welfare of a child. He immediately was sentenced to 2½ ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nice Internal Revenue Service refund check that many families eagerly await this time of year is down slightly from 2011 but still not too shabby: an average of about $3,000.

Through March 10, the IRS had issued 59.2 million refund checks totaling $174.4 billion, Douglas ...

ATLANTA (AP) — Nearly half of first marriages break up within 20 years, a new government study has found. With those odds, one might wonder: Would we be better off living together first?

The new research, part of a marriage survey of 22,000 men and women, suggests times have changed ...

HARTFORD, Conn. — Murray Lender, who helped turn his father's small Connecticut bakery into a national company credited for introducing bagels to many Americans, has died in Florida. He was 81.

Lender, perhaps best known from promoting Lender's Bagels in TV commercials, died Wednesday at a hospital in Miami from complications ...

NEW YORK — Rush Limbaugh's opponents are starting a radio campaign against him Thursday, seizing upon the radio star's attack of a Georgetown law student as a "slut" to make a long-term effort aimed at weakening his business.

The liberal Media Matters for America is using a past campaign against Glenn ...

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Neighborhood watch groups were designed to be the eyes and ears of police — passively observing what they see and reporting back to law enforcement — not to enforce the law themselves.

Most neighborhood watches follow the rules, and confrontations are rare. But after the killing of ...

MIAMI — Florida is among 21 states with a "Stand Your Ground Law," which gives people wide latitude to use deadly force rather than retreat during a fight. The self-defense law helps explain why a neighborhood watch captain has not been arrested in the shooting death of an unarmed teenager.