WASHINGTON (AP) - Three days out from the end of the year, lawmakers appeared to have made little progress toward devising a compromise to keep the nation from going over the so-called fiscal cliff at the start of 2013. All eyes were on the Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate, who vowed to keep chipping away despite the wide gulf still separating them.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Senate leaders rushed to assemble a last-ditch agreement to avoid middle-class tax increases and possibly delay steep spending cuts in an urgent attempt to find common ground after weeks of postelection gridlock.
SACRAMENTO (AP) - California women who want to get pregnant using sperm from a donor they know should find the process easier and less expensive next year, thanks to a new state law scheduled to take effect on Jan 1.
MOSCOW (AP) - A passenger airliner careered off the runway at Russia's third-busiest airport and partly onto a highway while landing on Saturday, broke into pieces and caught fire, killing at least four people.
PORTLAND, Maine (AP) - Arriving in a limo, Donna Galluzzo and Lisa Gorney had all the trappings of a traditional wedding: Rings, flowers, wedding vows, an entourage and a friend to officiate.
SAUSALITO, Calif. (AP) - Authorities say a man and a juvenile fishing near the Golden Gate Bridge died after being swept into the ocean by large waves.
It was a year of storms, of raging winds and rising waters, but also broader turbulence that strained our moorings. Our atmosphere, our politics, our economy - rarely in memory have they seemed in such constant agitation.
NEW YORK (AP) - If you'd told investors what was going to happen in 2012 - U.S. economic growth at stall speed, an intensifying European debt crisis, a slowdown in China, fiscal deadlock in Washington, decelerating corporate earnings growth - and asked how the stock market would perform, few would have predicted a good year.
NEW YORK (AP) - For New York City, it wasn't an unusual sight: a possibly mentally ill woman pacing and mumbling to herself on an elevated subway station platform.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - FBI files on Marilyn Monroe that could not be located earlier this year have been found and re-issued, revealing the names of some of the movie star's communist-leaning friends who drew concern from government officials and her own entourage.
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Sin City has another New Year's Eve planned with celebrity-studded bashes, exclusive concerts and a rooftop fireworks display billed as the nation's largest.
NEW YORK (AP) - The phones at Red's Trading Post wouldn't stop ringing. Would-be customers from as far away as New York wanted to know if the Twin Falls, Idaho gun shop had firearms in stock. Others clamored to find out if their orders had been shipped.
Santa Clarita Valley native Harry Carey Jr., a character actor who starred in such Westerns as "3 Godfathers" and "Wagon Master," has died. He was 91.
MILWAUKEE (AP) - A Wisconsin couple says clucks, not fire trucks, helped them escape a blaze at their home.
HUGHSON, Calif. (AP) - A Central California man died after posting a suicide note on Facebook and then driving his car onto railroad tracks about an hour later, as friends and family frantically tried to get in touch with him.
FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) - A man pulled a woman off a city bus in northern Indiana on Wednesday, fatally shot her and then took a 3-year-old boy hostage before a sniper killed him during a police standoff.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) - The widow of actor Andy Griffith has gotten a permit to tear down the house where he lived for many years on the North Carolina waterfront, upsetting friends who had hoped it would be preserved as a museum or Graceland-type estate.
SAN DIEGO (AP) - It's been three years since Leigh Steinberg had his last drink of vodka, the personal demon that sent his personal and professional lives crashing out of control.
NEW YORK (AP) - It seems an unpopular position in college basketball is fashion forward.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Five former elected officials of the tiny California city of Bell were convicted Wednesday of multiple counts of misappropriation of public funds, and a sixth defendant was cleared entirely.
VATICAN CITY (AP) - Forgive Pope Francis' security team for looking a bit nervous.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Privacy laws urgently need to be updated to protect the public from information-gathering by the thousands of civilian drones expected to be flying in U.S. skies in the next decade or so, legal experts told a Senate panel Wednesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) - While lower-wage American workers have accounted for the lion's share of the jobs created since the 2007-2009 Great Recession, a new survey shows that they are also among the most pessimistic about their future career prospects, their job security and their finances.
VALLEJO (AP) - A suspected bank robber released from jail earlier this month is back in custody again after being arrested in Vallejo, officials said.
DENVER (AP) - Gov. John Hickenlooper signed bills Wednesday that place new restrictions on firearms and signaled a change for Democrats who traditionally shied away from gun control debate in Colorado - a state with a moderate streak and pioneer tradition of gun ownership and self-reliance.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Tea party favorite Sen. Rand Paul said Tuesday that the nation's illegal immigrants should be able to become citizens eventually, but amid a furor from conservative activists on the explosive issue he quickly sought to make clear that, while they would not be sent home, they couldn't get in line in front of anyone else.
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - If history is any judge, the U.S. government will be paying for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars for the next century as service members and their families grapple with the sacrifices of combat.
VATICAN CITY (AP) - After a week marked by acts of simplicity and openness, Pope Francis finally let his words do the talking as he officially began his stewardship of the Catholic Church on Tuesday.
NEW YORK (AP) - A government survey of parents says 1 in 50 U.S. schoolchildren has autism, surpassing another federal estimate for the disorder.