Should photographer have right not to shoot commitment ceremonies for gays?

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - In a case that tests anti-discrimination protection for gays, a religious rights group told the New Mexico Supreme Court on Monday that a photographer who declined to shoot the commitment ceremony of a lesbian couple was exercising her rights to free speech and artistic freedom.

NYPD program patrols inside private buildings targeted in civil rights lawsuit

NEW YORK (AP) - Jay Victorino was standing outside his mother's apartment when he was grabbed by police, and he says if she hadn't come downstairs to identify him he would've been arrested on a trespassing charge.

Sarah Palin writing book about Christmas

NEW YORK (AP) - Sarah Palin has a new book coming, this time about Christmas.

Man just released from prison kills his grandparents

SEATTLE (AP) - Police are searching the Northwest for a man who they say killed his grandparents in the Seattle area and stole their car just hours after being released from a Washington state prison, and has since tried to obtain weapons.

Soda fizzles as America's now love water

NEW YORK (AP) - It wasn't too long ago that America had a love affair with soda. Now, an old flame has the country's heart.

Ex-Detroit mayor convicted, jailed until sentence

DETROIT (AP) - Jurors in a city buffeted by financial crisis convicted former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick on corruption charges Monday, capping a five-month trial that exposed a brazen pay-to-play culture during his years in office while the distressed city lost jobs and people and veered toward insolvency.

Obama poised to pick Perez for Labor

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama is poised to select Justice Department official Thomas Perez to be the next labor secretary, according to two people familiar with the deliberation process.

EA apologizes for ‘SimCity’ launch woes

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The creators of "SimCity" are hoping players don't move on after connectivity issues plagued the game's launch last week.

Soda crackdown starts Tuesday in New York

NEW YORK (AP) - At barbecue joints, coffee counters and bottle-service nightclubs, a coming clampdown on big, sugary soft drinks is beginning to take shape on tables and menus in a city that thrives on eating and going out.

Budget cuts force military jets to drop more than 190 air shows

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) - Even a rural festival celebrating the harvest of Georgia's famous sweet onions isn't safe from the federal budget battle 600 miles away, as automatic cuts are threatening to take away the star attraction for the Vidalia Onion Festival's popular air show: the Navy's daredevil fighter pilots, the Blue Angels.

Gay couples could see windfalls from ruling

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - For Mina Meyer and Sharon Raphael, two women in their 70s who fell in love more than four decades ago and have been married for more than four years, the U.S. Supreme Court's pending consideration of a law that prohibits the federal government from recognizing unions like theirs is about more than civil rights. It's about buying a new roof for their California home, replacing their 2005 Toyota Camry, and ensuring ...

Harvard secretly searched deans’ emails

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Harvard University administrators secretly searched the emails of 16 deans last fall, looking for a leak to reporters about a case of cheating, two newspapers reported.

Stress from storms, war tied to heart risks

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Stress does bad things to the heart. New studies have found higher rates of cardiac problems in veterans with PTSD, New Orleans residents six years after Hurricane Katrina and Greeks struggling through that country's financial turmoil.

Explosions mark dangers of making hash oil

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Nicholas Broms was trying to squeeze a better high from marijuana when his Oregon condo caught on fire. An explosion knocked out a wall, blew out his sliding glass door and torched his arms.

Comstock Lode mining picking up

VIRGINA CITY, Nev. (AP) - The company that brought gold and silver mining back to the historic Comstock region around Virginia City says the operation is proving as successful as expected and new discoveries have it even more optimistic about the future.

2 killed, 20 injured in Colorado mining accident on Sunday

OURAY, Colo. (AP) - Two workers were killed and 20 others were injured Sunday in a mining accident near the southwestern Colorado town of Ouray.

Social worker arrested after child cuffed to porch

MONROE, N.C. (AP) - A North Carolina social worker is under arrest after a foster child was found cuffed by the ankle to her front porch with a dead chicken hanging from around his neck.

Techies revive communal living in SF Bay Area

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Northern California tech entrepreneurs are reviving the practice of communal living to reduce housing costs and bring together creative young people.

California atlas seeks to clarify water issues

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - In California, few issues are as divisive as water. It pits North against South, fisherman versus farmer.

Seattle elects socialist to city council seat

'Revenge porn' victims press for laws

WASHINGTON (AP) - Annmarie Chiarini's long-distance boyfriend was goading her to pose nude. The pictures would be for his eyes only, Chiarini recalls him saying, because she was so beautiful and because he missed her so much. He promised, she said, they would be stored on a compact disc and hidden in his drawer.

MSNBC suspends Alec Baldwin's for anti-gay epithet

Macy's moves Joan Jett off SD state float

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) - Macy's is moving rocker Joan Jett and her band off the South Dakota tourism float in its Thanksgiving Day parade after ranchers complained about having a vegetarian and animal rights advocate representing their state.

Exchanges slow to attract young, healthy

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Fears that insurance exchanges that are the linchpin of President Barack Obama's federal health care overhaul wouldn't attract the young, healthy people needed to make them financially viable are being heightened by the early results of signups in several states.

Transgender Texas student's photo approved

HOUSTON (AP) - A South Texas school district reversed course on Friday, saying it will allow a photo of a transgender student wearing a tuxedo to appear in the teen's high school yearbook.

News from around the nation

Couple gives back adopted son after 9 years

In reversal, Obama to allow canceled health plans

WASHINGTON (AP) - His personal and political credibility on the line, President Barack Obama reversed course Thursday and said millions of Americans should be allowed to renew individual coverage plans now ticketed for cancellation under the health care law that is likely to be at the heart of the 2014 elections.

Suit challenging Google's digital library tossed

NEW YORK (AP) - A federal judge handed Google Inc. a victory in a long-running legal battle on Thursday, tossing out a lawsuit claiming the Internet giant was violating copyright laws by scanning books without the writers' permission to create the world's largest digital library.

Pilot says passenger fell into ocean

MIAMI (AP) - Rescue crews searched an area southeast of Miami after a pilot reported to the Federal Aviation Administration that a passenger fell out of his small plane into the ocean Thursday.