Updated: 2:25 AM Top members of Congress and President Barack Obama are holding out slim hopes for a limited fiscal deal before the new year. Congressional leaders are preparing to meet at the White House, but there are no signs that legislation palatable to both sides is taking shape.
Updated: 8:26 AM When a student fired a shotgun through the windows of a California high school to start an attack in 2001, Rich Agundez was ready. The El Cajon police officer was assigned to the school and wounded the shooter before the student could get inside the building.
Posted: 11:40 PM Chicago soon will have the nation's most expensive downtown parking meters.
Posted: 7:05 PM Reaction to the death Thursday of retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf from former President George H.W. Bush, the White House, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Posted: 6:25 PM Authorities in Ecuador say an American expert on teen sexual health has died while climbing a volcano in the South American nation.
Posted: 5:10 PM The Austin police officer who helped stop Charles Whitman's 1966 sniper rampage from atop the University of Texas tower has died.
Updated: 6:33 PM A U.S. official says retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded the U.S.-led international coalition that drove Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait in 1991, has died. He was 78.
Updated: 5:12 PM George H.W. Bush's chief of staff says the former president is getting excellent medical treatment in Houston and that he would ask that people "put the harps back in the closet."
Updated: 3:30 PM A central Pennsylvania man is charged with suffocating his 17-year-old girlfriend after injuring her by intentionally driving into a guardrail at about 100 miles per hour in the middle of the night.
Posted: 2:41 PM A man suspected in a shooting spree that targeted motorists along the Interstate 96 corridor in four southeast Michigan counties is facing fresh charges, including terrorism.
Posted: 2:22 PM A Wisconsin husband accused of shooting and killing his police officer wife on Christmas Eve has been ordered held on $1 million cash bond.
Posted: 2:07 PM Newtown is trying to keep Sandy Hook Elementary school students occupied with fun activities while they remain out of school following the massacre at their school.
Updated: 12:15 AM Massachusetts U.S. Rep. Edward Markey says he'll run for John Kerry's U.S. Senate seat if Kerry is confirmed as the nation's new secretary of state.
Posted: 2:01 PM Ordinary Americans are losing their faith in stocks: For the fifth year in a row, they are selling their holdings.
Posted: 1:57 PM The stock market erased most of an early loss in late trading after Republicans said they would reconvene the House of Representatives Sunday in hopes of piecing together a last-minute budget deal.
Updated: 8:32 AM Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the government appears headed over the so-called fiscal cliff because of a lack of progress in bipartisan negotiations.
Posted: 6:51 AM With a proposed payout of more than $1 billion, one major chapter of a nearly four-year legal saga that left Toyota Motor Corp. fighting hundreds of lawsuits and struggling with a tarnished image has ended, though another remains.
Updated: 8:32 AM President Obama and lawmakers are running out of time to work out an agreement to stave off the across-the-board tax increases and budget cuts that are set to take effect next week.
Posted: 6:10 AM A nonprofit group is reporting that the number of law enforcement officers who died while performing their duties declined this year compared to 2011.
Updated: 8:33 AM The average number of people seeking unemployment benefits over the past month fell to the lowest level since March 2008, a sign that the job market is healing.
Updated: 8:31 AM Four national retailers have agreed to recall more than 150,000 Nap Nanny baby recliners after at least five infant deaths and dozens of reports of children nearly falling out of the recliners.
Updated: 3:42 AM District of Columbia police say they are investigating an incident in which NBC News reporter David Gregory displayed what he described as a high-capacity ammunition magazine on "Meet the Press."
Posted: 12:45 AM Some schools in Philadelphia will soon have condom dispensers in their high schools. According to ABC News, students as young as 14 years old will have access to free condoms. This is part of an effort to fight the "epidemic" of sexually transmitted diseases among Philadelphia teens.
Updated: 4:34 PM Lt. Gov. Brian Schatz of Hawaii has been appointed to succeed the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Inouye.
Posted: 3:46 PM Federal regulators are weighing whether to make airlines reveal prices for baggage and other fees to online sellers like Orbitz and Expedia.
