Tom Gish

EDDYVILLE, Ky. A Kentucky inmate who resisted all appeals to stop his execution was put to death Friday for murdering two young children.

LINCOLN, Neb. Gov. Dave Heineman signed into law Friday a bill adding a 30-day age limit to a safe-haven law that allowed 35 children - including teenagers as old as 17 - to be abandoned at state hospitals. The law, approved hours earlier by the Legislature in a 45-3 vote, goes into effect Saturday, and makes Nebraska the 14th state with a 30-day age cap. It had been the only state with a safe-haven law without an age limit.

MIAMI A college student committed suicide by taking a drug overdose in front of a live webcam as some computer users egged him on, others tried to talk him out of it, and another messaged OMG in horror when it became clear it was no joke. Some watchers contacted the Web site to notify police, but by the time officers entered Abraham Biggs' home - a scene also captured on the Internet - it was too late.

OMAHA, Neb. The Nebraska Supreme Court on Friday ordered a year-old boy back into the home of an adoptive couple who had to give him up months ago after not telling the biological family the woman was pregnant.

LOS ANGELES A Missouri woman's daughter says her mother had wanted an Internet account shut down even before cruel messages were sent from it to a teenage neighbor who later committed suicide.

SANTA ANA, Calif. A Southern California commuter train that sideswiped a freight train this week had run a red signal, an investigator said Friday, and officials are looking at brake problems or human error as possible causes.

MARTINEZ, Calif. A sex-crimes prosecutor in California has pleaded not guilty to tying up and raping a colleague while threatening her with an ice pick and a handgun.

NEW YORK A bouncer already sentenced to lengthy prison terms for two New York City murders has been convicted of shooting another man dead and wounding three others outside a Manhattan nightclub.

WASHINGTON President-elect Barack Obama and his wife have chosen Sidwell Friends School for their two daughters, opting for a private institution that another White House child, Chelsea Clinton, attended a decade ago.

As of Friday, Nov. 21, 2008, at least 556 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The department last updated its figures Friday at 10 a.m. EDT.

ST. JOHNS, Ariz. An Arizona prosecutor is seeking to dismiss one of two murder charges against an 8-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting his father and another man.

NEW YORK At the behest of its students, an elementary school near New York City has been renamed after President-elect Barack Obama.

NEW YORK Libya wants to open a new chapter in relations with the United States by tapping into a major government fund to invest in U.S. companies and sending thousands of students to study in America, the son of Libya's leader said Friday.

LIHUE, Hawaii A Hawaii homeowner has been indicted on seven counts of manslaughter in connection with a dam failure in 2006.

RAYMONDVILLE, Texas A county prosecutor who brought indictments this week against Vice President Dick Cheney and others pounded his fist and shouted at the judge Friday during a routine hearing. Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra asked Presiding Judge Manuel Banales to recuse himself from the case, which alleges abuse at federally run prisons.

SAVANNAH, Ga. A 19-year-old man faces aggravated assault and possibly other charges in the shooting of a fellow student Friday on the campus of Savannah State University, police said.

LIMA, Peru In a final diplomatic dash, President George W. Bush on Friday moved to steady a shuddering economy and a wobbly effort to rid North Korea of its nuclear weaponry.

SALT LAKE CITY Hundreds of homes are being evacuated near Salt Lake City after a propane tanker rolled over on a highway ramp.

TYLER, Texas A man has died a day after an oil refinery explosion and fire in Texas.

COLUMBIA, S.C. Bob Jones University has apologized for racist policies including a one-time ban on interracial dating that wasn't lifted until nine years ago and its unwillingness to admit black students until 1971.

HARTFORD, Conn. When food importer Luciano Sclafani spied a three-liter tin of extra virgin olive oil a couple of years ago selling for $9.99, he could tell without tasting a drop that it wasn't legitimate.

DES MOINES, Iowa A federal grand jury has issued a 12-count indictment alleging that managers were intricately involved in efforts to employ illegal workers at a kosher slaughterhouse that was the site of one of the nation's largest immigration raids.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. Japanese millionaire Daisuke Enomoto had planned to dress up as his favorite cartoon character in outer space and spent $21 million to make it happen. Now he claims the company that was supposed make his dream come true brushed him aside with little more than a "sorry, no refunds."

BOSTON FBI agents arrested a Boston city council member Friday after he was videotaped allegedly taking a $1,000 bribe from an undercover agent in an expanding investigation into corruption at City Hall and the Massachusetts Statehouse.

LAS VEGAS The last plea has been entered in a brawl between rival biker gangs that left three people dead and dozens injured at a southern Nevada casino in 2002.

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. A man accused of beating his stepdaughter so severely that she suffered a permanent brain injury - triggering a right-to-die case - testified Friday that he never hit her and believed his wife's claims that the girl injured herself.

MOSCOW A top Russian anti-AIDS coordinator on Friday lambasted the government's approach to fighting HIV, saying the number of registered cases was growing 10 percent a year despite increased federal funding.

FORT WORTH, Texas A truck-driving thief made off with more than $3 million worth of merchandise from a venerable maker of cowboy boots and other footwear, authorities said.

WASHINGTON George and Martha Washington, Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz" and other costumed characters greeted thousands of visitors Friday as the National Museum of American History reopened after a two-year, $85 million renovation.

CINCINNATI FBI officials said Friday they arrested a man who threatened to blow up Cincinnati's football stadium, two airports, Ohio River bridges, and other landmarks.

SPRINGFIELD, Colo. Three people are dead after a fire that destroyed a restaurant and a home in the small Colorado town of Springfield.

LITITZ, Pa. A federal regulation aimed at preventing mad cow disease from getting into the food supply could create health risks of its own: many thousands of cattle carcasses rotting on farms, spreading germs, attracting vermin and polluting the water.

DAYTON, Ohio If only we could be a fly on the wall when our enemies are plotting to attack us. Better yet, what if that fly could record voices, transmit video and even fire tiny weapons?

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. A federal appeals court has upheld a Michigan law designed to prevent oceangoing freight ships from bringing invasive species to the Great Lakes.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. A former president of the Atlantic City Council has pleaded guilty to helping set up a political rival in a videotaped sex session.

INDIANAPOLIS A school district in the state where HIV-positive Ryan White fought for the right to attend classes two decades ago is being sued by the family of a 14-year-old girl who says she was bullied so badly over her positive status that she left school.

American farmers have long worried about the declining population of honeybees, a key crop pollinator. But honeybees originally came from Europe, so can't U.S. farms get by without them - with a little help from good old American bugs whose ancestors were here before Columbus?

FRESNO, Calif. An unstable cliff prompted officials Friday to permanently close some cabins in a popular Yosemite National Park lodge complex that has a long history of rockslides.

NEW YORK Sure, there's plenty of pressure on Barack Obama. But imagine being his wife.

RICHMOND, Va. Former NFL star Michael Vick is back in Virginia to face state dogfighting charges.

NEW YORK Stocks are down, down, down. But student interest in economics appears to be trending upward.

NEW YORK The Associated Press has named two veteran editors to leadership positions in a new regional editing operation for the Eastern United States.

While President-elect Barack Obama fills his Cabinet, many foodies are wondering who will fill the ones in his kitchen.

TYLER, Texas One man has died of injuries from an oil refinery explosion and fire in Tyler, Texas.

WESTPORT, Conn. Thirty-one Nobel Peace Prize recipients have joined with the non-profit group Save the Children in calling for help for millions of children trapped in war zones around the world.

BOSTON An all-black Civil War infantry unit honored in the Oscar-winning movie "Glory" with Denzel Washington is making a real-life comeback.

SEATTLE As more Americans turn to charity amid worsening economic gloom, operators of food banks and other aid groups are relying on the surprisingly resilient generosity of their neighbors and finding that even when times are tough, people still give.

BOGOTA, Colombia Landslides triggered by a volcanic eruption injured nine people and destroyed more than 20 homes and five bridges in southwest Colombia, prompting a red alert for more activity.

NEW ORLEANS In a Nov. 12 story, The Associated Press reported that the NAACP Legal Defense Fund was among the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit claiming racial discrimination by the Louisiana Road Home program, which provides rebuilding grants to Gulf Coast hurricane victims. The NAACP Legal Defense Fund is providing legal representation for the plaintiffs in the suit, but is not a plaintiff itself.