LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department is the focus of a federal probe over allegations that deputies discriminated against subsidized housing residents in two high desert cities, officials said.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It's the loud and clear consensus of Republicans in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail: Runaway government spending is the problem, not taxes. But the math isn't so simple.

JONESBORO, Ark. (AP) -- Three men convicted in the nightmarish slayings of three Cub Scouts went free Friday, nearly two decades after they were sent to prison in a case so gruesome it raised suspicions the children had been sacrificed in a Satanic ritual.

Hinds County Circuit Judge Tommie Green ruled Tuesday that a one-year statute of limitations elapsed between the time Stockett gave Ablene Cooper a copy of the book in January 2009 and the time of the lawsuit's filing in February of this year.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- Mississippi authorities have upgraded a murder charge to capital murder for a white teenager accused of intentionally running over a black man with a truck.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Community members in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood are gathering to mark the 20th anniversary of race riots there.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Texting and driving don't go well together - though not in the way you might think. Computer hackers can force some cars to unlock their doors and start their engines without a key by sending specially crafted messages to a car's anti-theft system. They can also snoop at where you've been by tapping the car's GPS system.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage has fallen to its lowest level on records dating to 1971.

LONDON (AP) -- A new oil sheen was spotted in the Gulf of Mexico, although energy company BP said Thursday the discovery had nothing to do with its operations and was far from the site of its disaster-hit Macondo well.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- After a summer of recall elections stemming from how Wisconsin lawmakers reacted to Gov. Scott Walker's proposal curbing public employee union rights, Republicans emerged bruised but not beaten while Democrats expressed optimism the tide was turning their way.