NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -- Four Americans taken hostage by Somali pirates off East Africa were shot and killed by their captors Tuesday, the U.S. military said, marking the first time U.S. citizens have been killed in a wave of pirate attacks plaguing the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean for years.

Ex-con Michael Ta'bon built himself a jail cell on a Philadelphia Street to advocate nonviolence and to educate young people about the dangers of crime and punishment.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Daytona 500 winner Trevor Bayne said Monday he's probably not going to attempt to run for the Sprint Cup championship this year.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An American jailed in Pakistan for the fatal shooting of two armed men was secretly working for the CIA and scouting a neighborhood when he was arrested

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- To end a high-stakes stalemate over union rights that has captured the nation's attention, a handful of Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin might have to stand up to their new governor.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- Hundreds of men in Civil War uniforms marched past the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s church Saturday to commemorate the inauguration of the Confederate president 150 years ago in a city that no longer rolls out the red carpet for them.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Aretha Franklin, who says she's back at ``150 percent,'' is planning to return to the stage in May for her first post-surgery performance.

JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) -- A black woman who once worked as a maid for a relative of novelist Kathryn Stockett is suing the author of the best-selling book ``The Help,'' claiming she was the basis for a black servant character who she thought depicted her in a poor light.

Congressional Black Caucus Chair, Emanuel Cleaver, II, (D-MO), was outraged over the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives refusal to hear testimony from Washington, D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton on Feb. 8

LUCASVILLE, Ohio (AP) -- Ohio executed a neo-Nazi Thursday who shot two men and a teen to death at Cleveland State University more than a quarter-century ago in a shooting spree that targeted blacks.