U.S. officials have given BP the go-ahead to drill a new deepwater well in the Gulf of Mexico, its first such permit since last year's catastrophic oil spill.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- The daughter of a woman accused of being the ringleader in an alleged Social Security fraud plot in which mentally disabled people were held captive in a squalid basement is "shocked" but understands the charges she faces, her lawyer said Wednesday.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Fed up with petty crime, the all-night racket of beating drums, the smell of human waste and the sight of trampled flowers and grass, police and neighbors are losing patience with some of the anti-Wall Street protests around the U.S.

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) -- Joe the Plumber is launching his bid for Congress in Ohio. A county Republican official tells The Associated Press that the man who became a household name during the 2008 presidential race will make his announcement Tuesday night.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A nurse who treated Michael Jackson has testified the singer asked her to help him get the powerful anesthetic propofol.

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) -- Police in riot gear cleared anti-Wall Street protesters on Tuesday morning from the plaza in front of Oakland's City Hall where they had been camping for about two weeks, prompting health and safety concerns among city officials.

PHOENIX (AP) -- Nearly two weeks after a 5-year-old girl seemingly vanished outside her suburban Phoenix home, police were no closer Monday to figuring out what happened to her as her family criticized the investigation.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The American Civil Liberties Union accused the FBI on Thursday of abusing increased powers it was given after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks by collecting and analyzing racial and ethnic demographic information across the country based on widespread stereotypes.

DAYTON, Ohio (AP) -- On the same afternoon thousands of Hispanics in Alabama took the day off to protest the state's strict new immigration law, Mexican-born Francisco Mejia was ringing up diners' bills and handing containers piled with carnitas to drive-thru customers on the east side of Dayton.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- Those who toiled alongside the Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth through the beatings and bombings of the civil rights era were among the hundreds gathered Monday to celebrate his legacy in the city he fought to liberate from segregation.