GARDENDALE, Ala. (AP) -- A powerful Republican leader in the Alabama Senate apologized Tuesday for referring to blacks as "aborigines" on recordings played during a federal gambling corruption trial.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Two chaplains and a Hollywood producer who volunteer at downtown's Los Angeles County jail say deputies brutalize inmates and sheriff's supervisors don't take beating reports seriously.

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) -- Sometime after midnight on a moonlit rural Oregon highway, a state trooper checking a car he had just pulled over found less than an ounce of pot on one passenger: A chatty 72-year-old woman blind in one eye.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Eight siblings allegedly taken from a New York child welfare agency by their mother last week have been found with their parents in a parked van in central Pennsylvania, authorities said.

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) -- When Georgia executed Troy Davis last week, it brushed aside international protests that too many witnesses had recanted trial testimony that he was the gunman who killed a police officer in 1989.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Opening statements began Tuesday in the trial of the doctor accused of killing Michael Jackson, with a prosecutor saying the superstar's misplaced trust in the doctor led to his death.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The cost of employer-sponsored health insurance surged this year, snapping a trend toward moderate growth, but experts say these increases may slow again in 2012.

MIAMI (AP) -- When Latin pop star Juanes announced plans for a 2009 concert in Havana, the powerful Cuban exile community in the U.S. met his proposal with jeers and anger. But a small group of young Cuban-Americans helped make it happen, publicly supporting Juanes and spreading the word for the "peace" concert" that became the communist island's largest non-government led event in decades.

CHICAGO (AP) -- Jessica Ewald brought more than a new baby boy home when she gave birth earlier this year. Like many new moms, she got a hospital goody bag, with supplies including free infant formula and formula coupons.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Rep. Maxine Waters says she's not sure who President Barack Obama was talking to when he told black Americans to quit complaining and follow him into the battle for jobs and opportunity.