KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Nearly one-third of St. Louis students would change schools if they were allowed to take advantage of a contested state law that allows them to transfer to better-performing districts, according to a study conducted as part of a lawsuit. If that happened, the district would have to pay millions in tuition and transportation costs.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration hopes to restore momentum in the spring to U.S. talks with the Taliban insurgency that had reached a critical point before falling apart this month because of objections from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, U.S. and Afghan officials said.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Melody Barnes is leaving as White House chief domestic policy adviser at a time when President Barack Obama's administration is getting little notice for its work on the home front to fix the struggling economy.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Money-transfer businesses that cater to Somali immigrants in Minnesota stopped accepting money bound for the famine-stricken East African country Thursday, a day before a key bank was due to stop processing the transactions.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) -- NASCAR driver Kasey Kahne has apologized for comments he made on his Twitter account about public breastfeeding.

At age 62, Donald Carter knows his arthritis and other age-related infirmities will not allow him to live indefinitely in his third-floor walk-up apartment in Philadelphia. But as a low-income renter, Carter has limited options. And as a gay black man, he's concerned his choice of senior living facilities might be narrowed further by the possibility of intolerant residents or staff members.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- All across Iowa next Tuesday, tens of thousands of Republican voters will travel through a chilly Midwestern night to the warmth of a local church or gymnasium for caucus meetings to select presidential candidates, the first voting in the 2012 election campaign.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of people seeking unemployment benefits rose last week after three weeks of decline.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama gets mediocre marks for his handling of the economy, and Mitt Romney easily outpolls his Republican rivals in an Associated Press survey of economists.

MUSCATINE, Iowa (AP) -- Mitt Romney and Rick Perry on Wednesday assailed Republican presidential rival Ron Paul for saying the U.S. has no business bombing Iran to keep it from acquiring a nuclear weapon, drawing a sharp contrast with their rising rival as he returned to Iowa to campaign before the lead-off caucuses.