Wildlife experts are trying to solve a mystery that evoked images of the apocalypse: Why did more than 3,000 red-winged blackbirds tumble from the Arkansas sky shortly before midnight on New Year's Eve?

President Barack Obama is quietly but strategically stepping up his outreach to Africa, using this year to increase his engagement with a continent that is personally meaningful to him and important to U.S. interests.

CHICAGO (AP) -- U.S. Rep. Danny Davis withdrew from the Chicago mayor's race Friday, leaving former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun as the only remaining prominent black candidate in the campaign.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- The old Boone Murphy House in Pine Bluff, which for a time served as a Union Army headquarters in the Civil War, is being renovated.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- The new year will bring a stronger voice for conservatives, once on New York's endangered list, and for liberals with an environmental bent following gains they made in the November elections.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Allstate Corp. has filed a federal lawsuit against Countrywide Financial Corp. over $700 million in toxic mortgage-backed securities that the insurer bought beginning in 2005, only to see their value decline rapidly.

A tornado fueled by an unusually warm winter air sliced through parts of northwestern Arkansas early on New Year's Eve, killing three people, injuring several others and knocking out power to thousands of homes and businesses.

If you've recently lost a loved one—and even if it happened not so recently—the holidays can be heart-wrenching. The stark contrast between glowing lights and the darkness of your sorrow is difficult to take.

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- Blacks made up nearly two-thirds of the Democrats removed from Louisiana's voter rolls because they hadn't voted in at least two years.

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- New York Gov. David Paterson commuted the sentence last week of a black man imprisoned for the racially charged shooting death of a white teenager on Long Island, a decision in the final days of his administration that infuriated the lawyer who prosecuted the case.