LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The former third-grade teacher charged with committing lewd acts on students was paid $40,000 to drop an appeal of his firing, a newspaper reported Friday.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Within just over a week, Netflix and Hulu are both debuting their first stabs at original scripted programming.

MIAMI (AP) -- By almost any measure, Norma Butler Bossard Elementary is a top performing school in Miami: It has consistently been rated an `A' by the state, and students have achieved high scores on Florida's standardized math and reading exams.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rushing to end a political uproar, President Barack Obama on Friday will announce that religious employers will not have to cover birth control for their employees after all, The Associated Press has learned. The administration instead will demand that insurance companies will be the ones directly responsible for providing free contraception.

NEW YORK (AP) -- A man shown on video being kicked and punched by four New York City police officers says he's suffered from constant headaches and nightmares since then.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) -- An American Indian tribe sued some of the world's largest beer makers Thursday, claiming they knowingly contributed to devastating alcohol-related problems on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The nation's first new nuclear power plant in a generation is expected to win approval Thursday as federal regulators consider whether to grant a license for two new reactors in Georgia.

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) -- Political turmoil over abortion and birth control spread suddenly on Tuesday. A high-ranking official resigned from the Komen breast-cancer charity after its backtracking treaty with Planned Parenthood, and Republican presidential candidates blistered the Obama administration for a recent ruling on Catholic hospitals and contraception.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new passenger screening program to make check-in more convenient for certain travelers is being expanded to 28 more major U.S. airports, the government said Wednesday. There will be no cost to eligible passengers, who would no longer have to remove their shoes and belts before they board flights.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Looking for a promising career in a lousy economy? A new study suggests you're apt to find it in apps - the services and tools built to run on smartphones, computer tablets and Facebook's online social network.