LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The pass rate for California's high school exit exam increased slightly for the class of 2012, marking the sixth straight year of gains, state education officials announced Wednesday.

NEW YORK (AP) -- For years, anti-gay epithets and sentiments in rap have largely been accepted, along with its frequent misogyny and violence, as part of the hip-hop culture -- a culture that has been slow to change, even as gays enjoy more mainstream acceptance, particularly in entertainment.

(CNN) -- Michelle Obama met privately Thursday with victims and surviving family members of the mass shooting at a Wisconsin Sikh temple earlier this month.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A group of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents filed suit Thursday against new policy directives on removing illegal immigrants.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Top Republicans investigating the botched "Fast and Furious" gun-running sting have demanded that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives explain why an official at the center of the controversy remains a government employee while apparently working for a top financial firm.

(CNN) -- A federal judge is once again weighing arguments over the "show me your papers" provision in Arizona's controversial immigration law.

(CNN) -- An elected county judge in Texas is warning that the nation could descend into civil war if President Barack Obama is re-elected, and is calling for a trained, well-equipped force to battle the United Nations troops he says Obama would bring in.

(CNN) -- A federal court has ruled in favor of Texas, which wants to ban state funding for Planned Parenthood affiliates participating in a health program for low-income women because the family planning network performs abortions.

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A controversial NYPD surveillance unit that cataloged information on Muslim communities never produced a lead that linked to a potential terrorist plot during years of investigating, according to the head of the city's police intelligence division.

(CNN) -- In a dusty old attic in Chattanooga, Tennessee, Stephon Tull was rummaging through dilapidated boxes left there by his father many years before, when he came across an interesting find.