NEW BERN - Bernard George dons the blue wool uniform of a U.S. Colored Troops Civil War soldier to celebrate the role of African-Americans in claiming their freedom.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits was mostly unchanged last week, evidence that the weak economy is struggling to generate jobs.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States will push ahead with more targeted drone strikes and special operations raids and fewer costly land battles like Iraq and Afghanistan in the continuing war against al-Qaida, according to a new national counterterrorism strategy unveiled Wednesday.

For decades, Rosa Morris Williams has prayed to live long enough to see justice for her grandfather, who died after being burned in his shoe shop in a 1964 attack believed to have been carried out by the Ku Klux Klan.

Two years after economists say the Great Recession ended, the recovery has been the weakest and most lopsided of any since the 1930s.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nearly a third of Americans experience long-lasting pain - the kind that lingers for weeks to months - and too often feel stigma rather than relief from a health care system poorly prepared to treat them, the Institute of Medicine said Wednesday.

DETROIT (AP) -- A federal appeals court has struck down Michigan's ban on the consideration of race and gender in university admissions.

NEW YORK (AP) --One hundred years ago, Samuel J. Battle was sworn in as the New York Police Department's first black officer. Today, the majority of the police officers at the nation's largest department are minorities—and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly says it is this diversity that makes the NYPD so effective.

Looking for a college bargain? Try any of nine University of Puerto Rico campuses, where annual tuition hovers at or below $2,000.
Counting pennies? Avoid Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, a private school where tuition, fees and room and board exceeds $50,000, making it one of the five most expensive schools on a new U.S. Department of Education guide to college costs.

NEW YORK (AP) -- MSNBC suspended political analyst Mark Halperin for an off-color remark about President Barack Obama on "Morning Joe" Thursday.