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NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Two hundred years ago, the first steamboat meandered down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, taking more than four months to reach New Orleans. The journey was marked by Indians chasing the paddle-wheeled boat, a baby's birth and an earthquake that made the Mississippi flow in the opposite direction for 45 miles....

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- A Taiwan representative accused of underpaying and overworking two Filipina housekeepers at her suburban Kansas City home was sentenced Friday to time served and immediate deportation....

DENVER (AP) -- The Denver-based 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a federal law making it illegal to lie about being a war hero is constitutional and that making such false statements is not protected free speech....

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Wheat 6,660 bushels: 19 cents lower to 1/2 cent higher; No. 2 hard 6.61-6.84n; No. 3 6.50-6.83n; No. 2 red wheat 6.76-7.64n; No. 3 red wheat 6.65-7.63n....

ATLANTA (AP) -- Former NFL player Kendrell Bell has accused his college football coach at the University of Georgia of duping him out of $2 million....

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Opponents of new state House districts took their legal challenge to a trial court Friday after Missouri's Supreme Court refused to hear their case directly....

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- The court-appointed receiver overseeing California's prison health care system said Friday the state must keep its promise to spend more than $2 billion for new medical facilities before the federal courts can end an oversight role that has lasted six years....

NEW YORK (AP) -- The CIA officer working as a special assistant to the New York Police Department's top intelligence officer will leave his post in April after nine months, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Friday....

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Two hundred years ago, the first steamboat meandered down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, taking more than four months to reach New Orleans. The journey was marked by Indians chasing the paddle-wheeled boat, a baby's birth and an earthquake that made the Mississippi flow in the opposite direction for 45 miles....

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- A California man accused of shooting his former boss, a city parks superintendent, filed a racial discrimination lawsuit against the park district and the slain superintendent in 2009....

DENVER (AP) -- One of three siblings who was part of a multistate crime spree and nationwide manhunt planned to escape from a Colorado jail with his sister, telling the FBI in a letter that he had enjoyed his stay, authorities said in a document released Friday....

HACKENSACK, N.J. (AP) -- Authorities in northern New Jersey say a teenager charged in the firebombings of two synagogues plotted a similar attack on a Jewish community center....

CAIRO (AP) -- Muslim Brotherhood supporters and secular protesters hurled bottles and rocks at each other and got into fistfights in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday as their political differences boiled over at a rally by tens of thousands marking an anniversary in the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak....

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) -- The defense lawyer for former dictator Efrain Rios Montt said Friday that a Guatemalan judge violated due process when she issued unprecedented genocide charges against Rios Montt for conduct during the country's bloody civil war....

BEIRUT (AP) -- Two days of bloody turmoil in Syria killed at least 74 people, including small children, as forces loyal to President Bashar Assad shelled residential buildings and fired on crowds in a dramatic escalation of violence, activists said Friday....

DAKAR, Senegal (AP) -- Senegal braced itself for possible violence before the constitutional court decides Friday whether to allow the country's leader of 11 years to run for a third term even though the constitution was revised after he came to office to allow a maximum of two....

PARIS (AP) -- France and Afghanistan will ask NATO to hand over all combat missions to the Afghan military in 2013, a year earlier than planned, President Nicolas Sarkozy said Friday....

BAGHDAD (AP) -- A suicide car bomber struck a Shiite funeral procession Friday, killing 33 people as suspected al-Qaida militants stepped up apparent efforts to provoke a counterattack by Shiite militias on Sunnis that could pave the way toward open sectarian warfare now that U.S. troops have left Iraq....

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) -- Novak Djokovic overcame his breathing problems and fatigue to beat friend Andy Murray 6-3, 3-6, 6-7 (4), 6-1, 7-5 Friday in a nearly five-hour Australian Open semifinal....

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- Peyton Manning and Colts owner Jim Irsay insist they are just fine after a week filled with complaints and comments suggesting a rift had developed following one of the most miserable seasons in team history....

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- Maybe those swing changes are paying off for Tiger Woods....

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) -- Greg Schiano relishes the challenge of trying to turn around the struggling Tampa Bay Buccaneers....

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- A.J. Foyt has been hospitalized in Houston for complications from knee surgery and will skip the 50th anniversary of the Rolex 24 at Daytona....

CLEVELAND (AP) -- Pat Shurmur is turning Cleveland's struggling offense over to a close friend....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal health regulators have approved Amylin Pharmaceutical's long-delayed diabetes drug Bydureon, a next-generation treatment that requires fewer injections than the company's current offering, Byetta....

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration said Friday that will expand its signature foreclosure-prevention program to try to help those with heavy debt loads avoid losing their homes....

Industrial metal prices are ending the week sharply higher on the expectation that inflation will rise....

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NEW YORK (AP) -- The euro jumped to a six-week high against the dollar after a European official said that Greece is close to reaching a deal with creditors to lower its debt....

DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) -- For Ford, there's no place like home....

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) -- After defending more than 60 people charged with capital murder and getting three men off Alabama's death row, attorney Richard Jaffe wants to get people talking about the death penalty and what he believes are its flaws....

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Demi Moore smoked something before she was rushed to the hospital on Monday night and was convulsing and "semi-conscious, barely," according to a caller on a frantic 911 recording released Friday by Los Angeles fire officials....

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Rev. Jesse Jackson is entering the fray over The Recording Academy's cuts to its Grammy categories: He's asking to meet with the president of the organization and has raised the possibility of protests with the awards less than two weeks away....

STOCKHOLM (AP) -- Mamma Mia, here they go again....

LONDON (AP) -- Chris Isaak is returning to the roots of rock 'n' roll and doing it old-school: All in one take....

PARIS (AP) -- British actress Kate Winslet is to receive an honorary award next month from organizers of the French equivalent of the Academy Awards....