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PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- The mother of a toddler missing since December says she was in denial for three months but has come to accept the heart-wrenching possibilities of what may have happened to her daughter, whose whereabouts remain unknown as her second birthday approaches....

RICHMOND HEIGHTS, Mo. (AP) -- A St. Louis hospital says it made every effort to help a homeless woman who sought treatment for a sprained ankle and who subsequently died while in police custody following her arrest for refusing to leave the emergency room....

MIAMI (AP) -- Newly released police video of a handcuffed George Zimmerman may be important for what it doesn't show: No obvious cuts, scrapes, blood or bandages. No clearly broken nose. No plainly visible evidence of a life-and-death struggle with Trayvon Martin....

RICHMOND HILL, Ga. (AP) -- No one recalls JetBlue Airways captain Clayton Osbon coming unhinged before. Not the airline that let him fly for 12 years, the neighbors in his secluded waterfront community or the friends he tried selling weight-loss shakes to on the side....

DETROIT (AP) -- A Michigan militia leader and his son each pleaded guilty Thursday to illegally possessing a machine gun, ending a six-week trial that took a dramatic turn this week when a judge dismissed more serious charges of conspiring to rebel against the government....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Republicans are ready to ram through the House an election-year, $3.5 trillion budget that showcases their deficit-cutting plan for revamping Medicare and slicing everything from food stamps to transportation while rejecting President Barack Obama's call to raise taxes on the rich....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House has passed a stopgap three-month transportation bill to keep federal aid flowing to construction projects....

ATLANTA (AP) -- Autism cases are on the rise again, largely due to wider screening and better diagnosis, federal health officials said Thursday....

ATLANTA (AP) -- Autism cases are on the rise again, largely due to wider screening and better diagnosis, federal health officials said Thursday....

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) -- Trayvon Martin's family has seized on a police video of neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, saying it does not show the injuries Zimmerman claims he suffered before fatally shooting the unarmed black teenager....

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- During the darkest days of the Great Recession, Ohio didn't have enough in its rainy day fund to buy even a candy bar. It held a balance of exactly 89 cents....

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) -- James Arruda Henry had plenty to be proud of as a lobster boat captain who managed to build his own house and raise a family. But he kept a secret into his 90s, one that forced him to bluff his way through life by day and brought tears at night....

ATLANTA (AP) -- A new government report says autism is more common than previously thought, burdening as many as 1 in 88 children....

DETROIT (AP) -- A Michigan militia leader and his son have pleaded guilty to a machine gun charge, two days after a federal judge dismissed more serious charges against them and five members of the group....

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) -- The fatal shooting of a black teenager by a neighborhood watch captain who then went free has led to nationwide protests calling for the shooter's arrest. Trayvon Martin's parents, civil rights leaders and social media users alike are portraying the case as racially motivated, saying the shooter would have been arrested had he been black and the victim white....

St. JOHNSBURY, Vt. (AP) -- A snowplow driver and his wife went to great lengths to dispose of the body of a popular teacher they had just beaten and strangled, putting her nude body on a tarp, pouring bleach on it, weighing the corpse down with concrete blocks and tossing it into the Connecticut River, court documents allege....

St. JOHNSBURY, Vt. (AP) -- A snowplow driver and his wife went to great lengths to dispose of the body of a popular teacher they had just beaten and strangled, putting her nude body on a tarp, pouring bleach on it, weighing the corpse down with concrete blocks and tossing it into the Connecticut River, court documents allege....

St. JOHNSBURY, Vt. (AP) -- A snowplow driver and his wife went to great lengths to dispose of the body of a popular teacher they had just beaten and strangled, putting her nude body on a tarp, pouring bleach on it, weighing the corpse down with concrete blocks and tossing it into the Connecticut River, court documents allege....

GREAT BEND, Kan. (AP) -- Prosecutors who say an "obsessed" Kansas man killed a 14-year-old cheerleader and burned her body at an asphalt plant must prove aggravating circumstances, such as sexual assault, to secure a capital murder conviction....

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- It may be impossible to overstate the importance of bluegrass legend Earl Scruggs to American music. A pioneering banjo player who helped create modern country music, his sound is instantly recognizable and as intrinsically wrapped in the tapestry of the genre as Johnny Cash's baritone or Hank Williams' heartbreak....