AP - A 12-year-old boy trick-or-treating with his family in central South Carolina was shot from inside a home Friday and killed, and his father and brother were wounded by the gunfire, authorities said.

AP - A gunman fatally shot a Cincinnati minister and wounded a church deacon just after the two men arrived at a northern Kentucky church to attend a funeral, police said.

AP - With no suspects identified and a crime scene washed by rains, police were hoping the anonymous caller who sent them to a homeless encampment where five people were shot to death would come forward and say more.

AP - The lopsided numbers tell the story of the U.N.'s uphill struggle to protect civilians caught up in the latest rebel assault in conflict-wracked eastern Congo.

AP - From Harlem, to the avenue in Atlanta where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was born, to Oakland, Calif., Americans black and white celebrated Barack Obama's election with tears, the honking of horns, screams of joy, arms lifted skyward — and memories of civil rights struggles past.

AP - Aging, frail survivors of the 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor gingerly sifted dirt as they helped to break ground on a new visitor's center for the USS Arizona Memorial.

AP - Barack Obama's former pastor complained Thursday that the media used him as a 'weapon of mass destruction' in an attempt to derail Obama's campaign for the presidency.

AP - Illinois does not have to issue specialty license plates bearing the slogan 'Choose Life.'

AP - Thousands of protesters took to the streets Saturday to protest passage of a measure banning gay marriage, authorities said.

AP - Police say a woman has abandoned her 18-year-old daughter at a hospital, saying she can't control the girl, in what may be the latest use of Nebraska's unique safe-haven law.

AP - Still reveling in the election of the first Hawaii-born U.S. president, the islands marked the issuance of its state quarter — the last in the 50-state quarter program.

AP - Even today, two years after Mark Foley's very public fall from grace, the former congressman can't explain why he sent lurid, sexually explicit computer messages to male teens who had worked as Capitol Hill pages.

AP - A sophomore high school student shot and killed one of her peers after an argument in a crowded hallway between classes, then walked to a nearby restaurant to call authorities and turn herself in, police said.

AP - A wind-driven brush fire destroyed dozens of homes Thursday in the tony enclave of Montecito, forcing residents to evacuate what has long been a hideaway for the rich and famous.

AP - A day after it received hoax mailings containing a white powder, the Mormon church on Friday blamed opponents of California's gay marriage ban for recent 'attacks' while an allied group condemned 'acts of domestic terrorism against our supporters.'

AP - Those who know Jing Hua Wu said the 47-year-old engineer was a smart, unassuming family man whose three young boys played among neighborhood children on a quiet street in this Silicon Valley city.

AP - A Texas museum hopes a document found in its archives turns out to be an authentic government copy of Abraham Lincoln's eloquent letter consoling a mother thought to have lost five sons in the Civil War.

AP - Michael Hernandez pulled a charred photo album from the wreckage of his home, the plastic pages melted and flaking after a wildfire tore through the mobile home park where he lived with his grandparents and 7-year old daughter.

AP - An FBI agent has been shot and killed while serving a warrant at a home near Pittsburgh.

AP - Authorities count hundreds of Amber Alert cases across the country as success stories when they start explaining why the media-friendly and politically popular bulletins are so important.

AP - Upon hearing about the suicide of a 13-year-old neighbor, a Missouri woman ordered her business assistant and daughter to delete the Internet account they are accused of using to harass the girl, the assistant testified Thursday.

AP - A third lawsuit claims Chicago police harassed black residents cheering President-elect Barack Obama's win on Election Night.

AP - A firefighter has been killed in a blaze at a New York City home.

AP - Police said a man who waved a pair of Samurai swords on the grounds of a Hollywood Scientology building had a 'previous relationship' to the church, but released little other information about the man shot and killed by a security guard.

AP - The fate of a Missouri mother accused of conspiring in a MySpace hoax that allegedly led to a 13-year-old girl's suicide is now in the hands of a jury.

AP - Both trials had the same pro-Hamas videos, the same Israeli witness and the same allegations of how a Muslim charity in Texas funneled millions of dollars to terrorists overseas.

AP - An astronaut, an elephant and a Smurf are joining Macy's Thanksgiving parade this year.

AP - Seven astronauts piled into space shuttle Endeavour for the return trip to Earth after eating Thanksgiving dinner, leaving their counterparts at the international space station like relatives parting ways from a holiday visit.

AP - At the University of Illinois, being an athlete gets you access to a $6 million facility with oversized leather chairs and Oriental rugs.

AP - Leslie Owen Collier was surrounded by cattle at a livestock auction when his cell phone rang. It was the White House.