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America's marriage culture may be changing, but two statistics look about the same as they did 30 years ago:

• By the time women reach age 40, about eight in 10 will have married for the first time, just as they did in the 1980s.

• And 20 years later, ...

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) — Sanford city commissioners have voted "no confidence" in their police chief over the handling of the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager by a neighborhood watch captain.

The commission voted 3-2 Wednesday night against Chief Bill Lee Jr.

Commissioner Mark McCarty said Lee, who was ...

SANFORD, Fla. — George Zimmerman once took criminal justice classes at the community college and was practically a one-man neighborhood watch in his gated part of town, calling police close to 50 times over the past eight years to report such things as slow-driving vehicles, strangers loitering in the neighborhood ...

On one side of the fence are women in habits and wimples who have taken vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.

On the other side of that fence, if a developer gets his way, will be women in G-strings in the business of nudity, dollars and prurience.

The scene for ...

CLEVELAND — The accused ringleader in beard-cutting attacks on fellow Amish in Ohio cannot rely on taxpayers to pay his legal bills, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

U.S. District Court Judge Dan Polster ruled that Samuel Mullet Sr., 66, who has a nearly 800-acre farm near Steubenville with oil and ...

CLINTONVILLE, Wis. — Sleepless families in a small Wisconsin town longed for quiet Wednesday after mysterious booming noises over the past few nights roused them from bed and sent residents into the street sometimes still in pajamas.

The strange disturbance sounds like distant thunder, fireworks or someone slamming a heavy ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that property owners have a right to prompt review by a judge of an important tool used by the Environmental Protection Agency to address water pollution.

The court sided with an Idaho couple who object to an EPA order that blocked ...

CONCORD, N.H. — New Hampshire lawmakers on Wednesday rejected a bill that would have made their state legislature the first one to repeal a gay marriage law, handing gay-rights supporters a key victory in the Northeast, where same-sex marriage is prevalent.

The state House voted 211-116 to kill the measure, ...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The San Francisco mayor said he's suspending the city's embattled sheriff and intends to remove him from office following a domestic violence conviction involving the law enforcement official's Venezuelan actress wife.

Mayor Ed Lee said Tuesday that Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi rejected his suggestion to resign after pleading guilty ...

An estimated 95 percent of U.S. infant adoptions now have some level of openness between birth parents and adoptive parents, unlike earlier decades, when such contact was routinely denied, says a report released Wednesday..

"The era of truly closed adoptions is probably coming to a quick end," said Adam Pertman, ...

Federal and state prosecutors are investigating the fatal shooting of an unarmed black Florida teenager by a neighborhood crime watch volunteer in a case that has provoked a national outcry.

Florida State Attorney Norm Wolfinger said Tuesday he will convene a grand jury April 10 in the death of Trayvon ...

CAPE CANAVERAL — The International Space Station may provide the setting for a 500-day pretend trip to Mars in another few years.

NASA said Tuesday that consideration is under way to use the space station as a dry run for a simulated trip to and from Mars.

It would be ...

The state of the nation's education system is becoming a national security issue and could leave the U.S. unprepared to respond to military threats and compete in a global economy, according to a new task force report from the Council on Foreign Relations.

"Though educational attainment has not changed significantly, ...

BALTIMORE — The leading voice among the nation's Roman Catholic bishops against the Obama administration's contraception mandate was named Tuesday as the 16th archbishop of Baltimore, the nation's first diocese.

Bishop William E. Lori, 60, comes from the Diocese of Bridgeport, Conn., and has testified before Congress several times in ...

Florida State Attorney Norm Wolfinger said Tuesday his office will convene a grand jury in central Florida to investigate the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager who was killed Feb. 26 in a gated community by a neighborhood watch captain.

Mr. Wolfinger, in a statement, said he shared the ...

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Residents and businesses from southeast Texas north through western Missouri braced for flooding Tuesday after a violent band of storms brought heavy rain, hail and at least one tornado, with more of the same forecast for the next several days.

The National Weather Service said a ...

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) — The attorney for the family of a black teenager fatally shot by a neighborhood watch captain said Tuesday that the boy was talking to his girlfriend on his cell phone when the confrontation began. She did not hear the shooting.

Their phone call was discussed at ...

A 36-year-old Texas man was sentenced Monday in federal court in Dallas to 30 years in prison followed by 30 years of supervised release on his guilty plea to conspiracy to traffic women for prostitution, including those involved in adult escort websites headquartered in Dallas and Fort Worth as well ...

PITTSBURGH — Despite looming federal regulations and rock-bottom market prices, leaders in the natural gas business are confident the shale boom that's helped revitalize economies from Pennsylvania to Wyoming is only just getting started.

Companies from across the sector, from multibillion-dollar outfits such as Chesapeake Energy to small-town hardware stores, ...

Despite assurances from Clint Eastwood and Eminem, Detroit's rebirth may be on hold, as the city is on a Greece-like track to run out of money before summer, and things are getting increasingly testy between the state's Republican governor and the city's Democratic mayor.

Although the automotive sector and some ...