By 2010-09-09T12:25:58Z WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama is exhorting a Florida minister to "listen to those better angels" and call off his plan to engage in a Quran-burning protest this weekend....

By MARK PRATT 2010-09-09T14:20:07Z BOSTON (AP) -- New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady walked away unhurt from a two-car accident near his home on Thursday morning and was expected at practice later in the day, the team confirmed....

By MICHAEL GRACZYK 2010-09-09T11:09:12Z HOUSTON (AP) -- Suzi Hanks reads Playboy magazine for the articles. And the jokes. And the letters and cartoons....

By GENE JOHNSON 2010-09-09T10:09:00Z SEATTLE (AP) -- The father of a U.S. soldier serving in Afghanistan says he tried nearly a half dozen times to pass an urgent message from his son to the Army: Troops in his unit had murdered an Afghan civilian, planned more killings and threatened him to keep quiet about it....

By TERENCE CHEA 2010-09-09T09:44:52Z BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) -- Amid the uproar over the proposed mosque near ground zero in New York, a new Islamic college recently opened its doors in California with plans to educate a new generation of Muslim-American leaders....

By RAMIT PLUSHNICK-MASTI 2010-09-09T13:57:16Z Something was wrong....

By RACHEL ZOLL 2010-09-08T21:04:46Z NEW YORK (AP) -- The Florida pastor who plans to burn the Quran on the anniversary of 9/11 is rooted in Pentecostal tradition that believes Christians are engaged in a modern-day spiritual battle with evil....

By KEN MILLER 2010-09-09T14:18:42Z OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- The remnants of Tropical Storm Hermine trekked northward after forcing more than 100 high-water rescues in Texas, swamping streets, producing several tornadoes and killing at least two people....

By DON BABWIN and SOPHIA TAREEN 2010-09-09T00:12:54Z CHICAGO (AP) -- The last time Chicago was left without a Daley at the helm, the next mayor was thrown out of office by voters angry because he couldn't keep snow off the streets....

By CARLA K. JOHNSON and JOHN FLESHER 2010-09-08T22:41:39Z CHICAGO (AP) -- John Goss, an environmental activist and former state official from Indiana, was appointed Wednesday as the Obama administration's point man in the fight to prevent Asian carp from gaining a foothold in the Great Lakes....

By PAUL ELIAS 2010-09-09T00:14:49Z SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A sharply divided federal appeals court threw out a lawsuit that challenged Boeing Co.'s role flying terrorism suspects to secret prisons and raised questions about the government's ability to quash lawsuits when state secrets are involved....

By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON 2010-09-08T07:57:29Z LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Investigators found no explosives aboard a Los Angeles-bound Thai Airways flight in which a bomb threat was found scrawled on a bathroom mirror, the FBI said Wednesday....

By PAUL J. WEBER 2010-09-08T07:23:52Z RAYMONDVILLE, Texas (AP) -- It's power spent, what was left of Tropical Storm Hermine was making its way north Wednesday, having drenched parts of northeastern Mexico and south Texas before weakening....

By MIKE GLOVER 2010-09-08T10:26:19Z DAVENPORT, Iowa (AP) -- Despite two terms as governor of New Mexico and recent visits to 26 states, most Americans have never heard of Gary Johnson....

By 2010-09-08T08:59:51Z DETROIT (AP) -- Fire officials say flames have swept through at least two dozen Detroit homes, fanned by strong winds that toppled power lines across the city and knocked out service to at least 113,000 Michigan homes and businesses....

By SETH BORENSTEIN 2010-09-07T22:15:23Z WASHINGTON (AP) -- Government scientists studying the BP disaster are reporting the best possible outcome: Microbes are consuming the oil in the Gulf without depleting the oxygen in the water and creating "dead zones" where fish cannot survive....

By STEPHANIE REITZ 2010-09-07T23:18:22Z SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) -- Merriam-Webster's "Word of the Summer" is not even a word. That's something no one can "refudiate."...

By MITCH STACY 2010-09-09T14:35:16Z GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- As Florida officials worried about public safety surrounding a small church's plan to burn the Quran, President Barack Obama added his voice to the chorus of opposition to the church's intention to burn copies of Islam's holiest text to mark the 9/11 terrorist attacks....

By JENNIFER PELTZ 2010-09-07T23:29:39Z NEW YORK (AP) -- Billionaire philanthropist George Soros is putting up $100 million, one of the largest donations of its kind, to expand Human Rights Watch and help it court more international support....

By TAMMY WEBBER and DON BABWIN 2010-09-08T10:47:36Z CHICAGO (AP) -- Suddenly, the race for Chicago mayor is on. Mayor Richard M. Daley has thrown the competition for the city's top job wide open by announcing he won't run for a seventh term, ending 21 years of token opposition and prompting speculation about who's next in line to lead the nation's third largest city....