• 
  Obama defends drone strikes but says no cure-all

  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Thursday defended America's controversial drone attacks as legal, effective and a necessary linchpin in an evolving U.S. counterterrorism policy. But he acknowledged the targeted strikes are no "cure-all" and said he is haunted by the civilians unintentioally killed.

• Obama: Policy in leaks investigations under review

  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said Thursday that the Justice Department will review the policy under which it obtains journalists' records in investigations of the leak of government secrets.

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  Muslim hardliners ID London terror suspect

  LONDON (AP) — Two Muslim hardliners say the man seen wielding a bloody butcher's knife after the killing of a British soldier is a Muslim convert who took part in demonstrations with the banned radical group al-Muhajiroun.

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  Boy Scouts vote on policy toward openly gay boys

  GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) — In one of their most dramatic choices in a century, local leaders of the Boy Scouts of America voted Thursday on whether to ease a divisive ban and allow openly gay boys to be accepted into the nation's leading youth organization.

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  Clashes in Lebanon feed fear of Syria spillover

  BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad fired heavy machine guns and lobbed mortar shells at each other Thursday in some of the worst fighting in the port city of Tripoli in years.

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  Distraught mom becomes face of Oklahoma storm

  MOORE, Okla. (AP) — A massive tornado was carving its way through town. There was no time to hesitate. LaTisha Garcia had to get to her children.

• Teen arrested in death of his 2 brothers in Utah

  WEST POINT, Utah (AP) — A teenager was arrested Thursday in the deaths of his two younger brothers, ages 4 and 10, at the family home in a Utah subdivision of new homes and tidy lawns, police said.

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  'I'm not racist': Common claim after racial slurs

  It's almost a cliche. First, someone talking about blacks makes reference to fried chicken, watermelon, monkeys or dogs — or even uses the indefensible N-word. Then, along with the inevitable apology, comes the kicker: I'm not racist.

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  Cockroaches quickly lose sweet tooth to survive

  NEW YORK (AP) — For decades, people have been getting rid of cockroaches by setting out bait mixed with poison. But in the late 1980s, in an apartment test kitchen in Florida, something went very wrong.

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  Jerry Lewis repeats his distaste for female comics

  CANNES, France (AP) — Ladies? Don't make him laugh.

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  Thunderstorms slow Oklahoma tornado cleanup

  MOORE, Okla. (AP) — A band of thunderstorms battered the Oklahoma City area Thursday, slowing cleanup operations in the suburb where a tornado killed 24 people and destroyed thousands of homes this week.

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  Distraught mom becomes face of Oklahoma storm

  MOORE, Okla. (AP) — A massive tornado was carving its way through town. There was no time to hesitate. LaTisha Garcia had to get to her children.

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  Obama endorses more oversight of drone strikes

  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says his administration is willing to consider accepting increased oversight of lethal drone strikes outside of war zones like Afghanistan.

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  House GOP leaders pledge action on immigration

  WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican leaders of the House of Representatives are pledging to act to fix the nation's immigration system but making clear that they will not simply accept legislation passed by the Senate.

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  Boy Scouts vote on policy toward openly gay boys

  GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) — In one of their most dramatic choices in a century, local leaders of the Boy Scouts of America voted Thursday on whether to ease a divisive ban and allow openly gay boys to be accepted into the nation's leading youth organization.

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  Latest deadly tornado tests Oklahoma town's mettle

  MOORE, Okla. (AP) — Having lived most of her life in this Oklahoma City suburb, Barbara Bryen never feared twisters. They were just part of life in a particularly deadly stretch of Tornado Alley.

• Storm took town's youngest as it swept through

  MOORE, Okla. (AP) — One loved the spotlight. Another was nicknamed "The Wall" because of the force he brought to the soccer field.

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  10 Things to See: A week of top AP photos

  Here's your look at highlights from the weekly AP photo report, a gallery featuring a mix of front-page photography, the odd image you might have missed and lasting moments our editors think you should see.

• Swim coach sentenced to 7 years for sex abuse

  ROCKVILLE, Md. (AP) — A Virginia man who was once one of the nation's most prominent swimming coaches has been sentenced to seven years in prison for sexually abusing one of the girls he instructed.

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  Cockroaches quickly lose sweet tooth to survive

  NEW YORK (AP) — For decades, people have been getting rid of cockroaches by setting out bait mixed with poison. But in the late 1980s, in an apartment test kitchen in Florida, something went very wrong.

More

• 
  Muslim hardliners ID London terror suspect

  LONDON (AP) — Two Muslim hardliners say the man seen wielding a bloody butcher's knife after the killing of a British soldier is a Muslim convert who took part in demonstrations with the banned radical group al-Muhajiroun.

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  Q&A: What is known about London attack

  A look at the key known facts about attack in south London in which two men killed a British soldier near military barracks Wednesday.

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  Clashes in Lebanon feed fear of Syria spillover

  BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanese supporters and opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad fired heavy machine guns and lobbed mortar shells at each other Thursday in some of the worst fighting in the port city of Tripoli in years.

• 
  Sweden's riots raise questions about inequality

  HUSBY, Sweden (AP) — Sweden has long been a bastion of generous social welfare and an egalitarian political culture. So many people were shocked when scores of youths hurled rocks at police and set cars ablaze during rioting in several largely immigrant areas near Stockholm this week.

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  Israel says Iran unaffected by world pressure

  JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel's prime minister says a new report by the U.N. atomic agency shows that international pressure is having no effect on halting Iran's suspect nuclear program.

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  Liberia denies resource deals violated laws

  The Liberian government denied on Friday it had violated its own laws in awarding resource contracts and pledged to implement the recommendations of an independent audit into the deals.

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  Government support dips as Spaniards tire of crisis, corruption

  Public support for Spain's ruling center-right party has slipped following a high-level corruption scandal and ongoing recession, and Spaniards remain pessimistic about the political and economic outlook, a poll showed on Friday.

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  Somalia's security forces hamstrung by corruption, infiltrators

  Somalia's security forces need rebuilding to cement gains made by foreign troops against Islamist militants, but how to pay and arm recruits, tackle corruption and prevent rebels infiltrating their ranks remain hurdles for the cash-strapped government.

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  FBI releases photos of three men from Benghazi attack site

  The FBI on Thursday released the photographs of three men it said were at the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, when it was attacked last September.

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  Anti-EU party shakes British PM's Conservatives in local vote

  The anti-European Union UK Independence Party made sweeping gains in local elections, siphoning support from British Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservatives in a vote that exposed a threat to his re-election chances in 2015.

More

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  House GOP leaders pledge action on immigration

  WASHINGTON (AP) — The Republican leaders of the House of Representatives are pledging to act to fix the nation's immigration system but making clear that they will not simply accept legislation passed by the Senate.

• 
  Obama defends drone strikes but says no cure-all

  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Thursday defended America's controversial drone attacks as legal, effective and a necessary linchpin in an evolving U.S. counterterrorism policy. But he acknowledged the targeted strikes are no "cure-all" and said he is haunted by the civilians unintentioally killed.

• 
  Pritzker's ties to thrift, tax haven eyed

  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's nominee for secretary of commerce is facing scrutiny in the Senate for her ties to a subprime mortgage lender that failed in 2001 and as a beneficiary of family offshore trusts in the Bahamas.

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  Report: Nation's kids need to get more physical

  WASHINGTON (AP) — Reading, writing, arithmetic — and PE?

• Obama: Policy in leaks investigations under review

  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama said Thursday that the Justice Department will review the policy under which it obtains journalists' records in investigations of the leak of government secrets.

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  Anti-war protester shouts at Obama during speech

  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama was interrupted three times by a woman who shouted about drones and detainees in Cuba as he delivered a speech on national security.

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  Tea party storm largely inside IRS _ so far

  WASHINGTON (AP) — Three days of congressional hearings about the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of conservative political groups have lawmakers looking for ways to widen an investigation that has so far been largely contained within the tax collection agency.

• House backs variable rate student loans

  WASHINGTON (AP) — Dismissing a veto threat from President Barack Obama, lawmakers in the Republican-led House approved legislation that links student loan rates to the ups and downs of the financial markets.

• 
  US, Israel raise hopes for Mideast peace restart

  JERUSALEM (AP) — The United States and Israel raised hopes Thursday for a restart of the Middle East peace process, despite little tangible progress so far from U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry's two-month-old effort to get Israelis and Palestinians back to the negotiating table.

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  Between economy and trouble, Obama approval steady

  WASHINGTON (AP) — The economy is recovering, the White House is dealing with multiple controversies, and President Barack Obama appears generally unaffected either way.

More

• Other companies challenging contraception mandate

  DENVER (AP) — Hobby Lobby Stores Inc. is challenging the part of the federal health care law that requires for-profit companies to offer employees health coverage that includes products the business owners find morally objectionable, such as certain types of contraception.

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  Tougher drunken driving threshold recommended

  WASHINGTON (AP) — States should cut their threshold for drunken driving by nearly half — from .08 blood alcohol level to 0.5 — matching a standard that has substantially reduced highway deaths in other countries, a U.S. safety board recommends. That's about one drink for a woman weighing less than 20 lbs.

• Teen birth rates decline in most US states

  The U.S. teen birth rate fell 25 percent over five years to a record low of 31 births per 1,000 teens ages 15 to 19, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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  Measles surges in UK years after flawed research

  LONDON (AP) — More than a decade ago, British parents refused to give measles shots to at least a million children because of now discredited research that linked the vaccine to autism. Now, health officials are scrambling to catch up and stop a growing epidemic of the contagious disease.

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  Report: Nation's kids need to get more physical

  WASHINGTON (AP) — Reading, writing, arithmetic — and PE?

• 
  Women have more options for breast cancer surgery

  CHICAGO (AP) — One of the world's most glamorous women had an operation that once was terribly disfiguring — removal of both breasts. But new approaches are dramatically changing breast surgeries, whether to treat cancer or to prevent it as Angelina Jolie just chose to do. As Jolie said, "the resuls can be beautiful.

• Judge in NYC refuses to suspend his Plan B ruling

  NEW YORK (AP) — A government appeal of a ruling giving women of all ages broad access to morning-after birth control is frivolous, a federal judge said Friday as he refused to suspend enforcement of his decision pending appeal.

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  US government files morning-after pill appeal

  NEW YORK (AP) — The Obama administration on Monday filed a last-minute appeal to delay the sale of the morning-after contraceptive pill to girls of any age without a prescription.

• Govt stops study seeking to prevent type of stroke

  WASHINGTON (AP) — The government has halted a study testing treatments for a condition in the brain that can cause strokes. Early results suggest invasive therapies are riskier than previously thought.

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  Birth control coverage up for federal appeal

  DENVER (AP) — Contraception coverage by for-profit companies faces a prominent test in Denver.

More

• 
  Cockroaches quickly lose sweet tooth to survive

  NEW YORK (AP) — For decades, people have been getting rid of cockroaches by setting out bait mixed with poison. But in the late 1980s, in an apartment test kitchen in Florida, something went very wrong.

• 
  NASA head views progress on asteroid lasso mission

  PASADENA, Calif. (AP) — Surrounded by engineers, NASA chief Charles Bolden inspected a prototype spacecraft engine that could power an audacious mission to lasso an asteroid and tow it closer to Earth for astronauts to explore.

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  Hurricane forecast: Another busy Atlantic season

  COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — Get ready for another busy hurricane season, maybe unusually wild, federal forecasters say.

• Study: Amphibians disappearing at alarming rate

  GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — A new study has determined for the first time just how quickly frogs and other amphibians are disappearing around the United States, and the news is not good.

• 
  Google to add Galapagos Islands to Street View

  SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Few have explored the remote volcanic islands of the Galapagos archipelago, an otherworldly landscape inhabited by the world's largest tortoises and other fantastical creatures that inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

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  Solar-powered plane takes off for flight across U.S.

  A solar-powered airplane that developers hope to eventually pilot around the world took off early on Friday from San Francisco Bay on the first leg of an attempt to fly across the United States with no fuel but the sun's energy.

• Space junk needs to be removed from Earth's orbit: ESA

  Space junk such as debris from rockets must be removed from the Earth's orbit to avoid crashes that could cost satellite operators millions of euros and knock out mobile and GPS networks, the European Space Agency said.

• 
  Alexander Graham Bell speaks, and 2013 hears his voice

  Nine years after he placed the first telephone call, Alexander Graham Bell tried another experiment: he recorded his voice on a wax-covered cardboard disc on April 15, 1885, and gave it an audio signature: "Hear my voice - Alexander Graham Bell."

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  Campaigners call for ban on "killer robots"

  Machines with the ability to attack targets without any human intervention must be banned before they are developed for use on the battlefield, campaigners against "killer robots" urged on Tuesday.

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  Virgin's passenger spaceship completes first rocket test flight

  (Reuters) - A six-passenger spaceship owned by an offshoot of Virgin Group fired its rocket engine in flight for the first time on Monday, a key step toward the start of commercial service in about a year, Virgin owner Richard Branson said.

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  For Philadelphia bicyclist, a cat is his co-pilot

  PHILADELPHIA (AP) — For bicyclist Rudi Saldia, you could say a cat is his co-pilot.

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  Council members abstain from vote on abstaining

  YPSILANTI, Mich. (AP) — Three members of a Michigan city council have abstained from voting on a measure that would have prevented them from abstaining on future votes.

• Brown hounded for calling Manila 'gates of hell'

  MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Dan Brown's description of Manila as "the gates of hell" in the American novelist's latest book has not gone down well with officials in the Philippine capital.

• Crane accident cuts power to one-third of Vietnam

  HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — One mistake by a clumsy crane operator caused a 10-hour blackout over about a third of Vietnam, exposing the fragility of the nation's power grid.

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  Goat on the lam snarls NJ's Pulaski Skyway traffic

  JERSEY CITY, N.J. (AP) — A goat believed to have escaped en route to a slaughterhouse snarled the morning commute along one of the busiest roadways in northern New Jersey on Tuesday, leading police on a nearly two-hour chase.

• Thailand urged to explore edible insect market

  BANGKOK (AP) — Researchers say Thailand is showing the world how to respond to the global food crisis: by raising bugs for eating.

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  Ferris wheel ride world record broken in Chicago

  CHICAGO (AP) — A manager of Chicago's Navy Pier rode the tourist spot's Ferris wheel for more than two days — 384 times, up and around — bringing the world record for the longest ride to the birthplace of the amusement park favorite.

• Funeral home has bicycle hearse for 1 last ride

  EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon funeral home in Eugene offers natural burials where the ride to the person's final resting place is on the back of a three-wheeled bicycle.

• Critter cams provide peek into the lives of bears

  ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Biologists at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game are getting a peek into what city bears do all day.

• Alaska man runs onto frozen lake to avoid jail

  ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Anchorage police say a young man who didn't want to return to jail ran out onto the uncertain ice of an Alaska lake to escape officers armed with an arrest warrant.

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• 
  Review: Google music plan solid, serendipitous

  LOS ANGELES (AP) — Google's new music service offers a lot of eye candy to go with the tunes. The song selection of around 18 million tracks is comparable to popular services such as Spotify and Rhapsody, and a myriad of playlists curated along different genres provides a big playground for music lvers.

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  HP's 2Q offers hope even as revenue slump deepens

  SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Hewlett-Packard is still scrambling to meet the growing demand for more versatile and less expensive mobile devices as a slump in its personal computer sales deepens, but the company's cost-cutting measures and focus on more profitable areas of technology appear to be easing th pain.

• Twitter adds security measure to logins

  NEW YORK (AP) — Twitter is adding an extra security measure to users' accounts in an effort to prevent unauthorized logins.

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  Google to add Galapagos Islands to Street View

  SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Few have explored the remote volcanic islands of the Galapagos archipelago, an otherworldly landscape inhabited by the world's largest tortoises and other fantastical creatures that inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.

• Lenovo says quarterly profit up 90 percent

  BEIJING (AP) — Computer maker Lenovo Group said Thursday its latest quarterly profit rose 90 percent as sales of smartphones and mobile computing technology expanded.

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  First Look: New Xbox elegant, but much unknown

  REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Will gamers want One?

• 
  The new consoles from Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony

  NEW YORK (AP) — Microsoft is the last of the three big video game console makers to unveil its latest gaming system. The unveiling comes nearly eight years after the Xbox 360 went on sale. It follows last fall's debut of Nintendo's Wii U and a preview in February of the upcoming PlayStation 4 from ony.

• Jennifer Lopez to open cellphone stores

  NEW YORK (AP) — "Jenny from the Block" wants the block to buy Verizon phones from her.

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  Apple case seen as possible spur to tax action

  WASHINGTON (AP) — Now that tech darling Apple Inc. has been dragged front and center into the debate over the U.S. tax code, lawmakers are hoping that the spotlight on such a high-profile company could be the catalyst for Congress to take action to close loopholes or reform the law.

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  Google unveils maps, photo, music features

  SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google's sixth annual conference for software developers opened Wednesday with a chance for the company to showcase its latest services. Announcements included new features for online games, maps and search, a new music-streaming service and enhancements to its Google Plus socil network, including tools for editing and sharing photos.

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