The American Redoubt, where survivalists plan to survive

The American Redoubt: It lies in the rural high country of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, eastern Washington and Oregon. | 02/10/12 06:42:35 By - Kim Murphy

Commentary: Tim Tebow's on-field prayers

Really? Seriously?

In the history of pro sports, men have done all sorts of things to commemorate their feats on the field or the court. They have flopped like seals, walked like gorillas, head-butted like bighorn sheep. They have high-fived, low-fived, dog-piled, chest-bumped, wept, kissed their own biceps. They have breakdanced, riverdanced, jitterbugged and otherwise tripped the light fantastic. | 02/10/12 06:03:12 By - Leonard Pitts Jr.

Commentary: How the Tuskegee Airmen finally slipped their surly bonds

Something unusual happened at the premiere of the film, "Red Tails," at the AMC theater in Olathe, Kansas.

People applauded during the movie and when it ended. They also cheered, laughed and cried during the film. | 02/10/12 06:06:47 By - Lewis W. Diuguid

Former Giffords aide to run for congressional seat

A former aide to Gabrielle Giffords who was wounded in the shooting that nearly took her life announced his candidacy for a special election to replace the Arizona Democrat in Congress. | 02/10/12 06:35:20 By - Michael A. Memoli

White supremacists revive dream of a homeland in Northwest

Three sanitation workers found it along the route of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day march: a nest of wires in a backpack. | 02/10/12 06:42:35 By - Kim Murphy

School bus fire occurred in same make and model as previous blazes

A Charlotte-Mecklenburg school bus that caught fire Wednesday afternoon was the same make and model as other buses that have gone up in flames in North Carolina in the past two years, prompting state officials to send at least one cautionary memo to school systems. | 02/10/12 06:31:28 By - Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Ann Doss Helms

State Department cleared of conflict, not ineptness on Keystone pipeline

An internal audit cleared the State Department of major missteps and conflicts of interest in its environmental review of the Keystone XL pipeline, but faulted the agency for its lack of scientific expertise and for not adequately considering alternate routes. | 02/10/12 06:35:20 By - Neela Banerjee

Anti-gay-marriage forces plan Proposition 8 strategy after legal defeat

Anti-gay-marriage forces were charting their next move this week after a three-judge federal appeals court panel ruled that Proposition 8, the 2008 California ballot measure banning same-sex unions, is unconstitutional. | 02/10/12 06:47:25 By - Maura Dolan

Kansas abortion debate gets heated over rubber stamp 'attack'

A Kansas abortion debate turned nasty Thursday when the leader of a women's group pulled out a rubber stamp and accused a House panel of routinely approving bills restricting the procedure. One lawmaker walked out in protest. | 02/10/12 07:11:34 By - Brad Cooper

Michelle Obama shares meal, Let's Move campaign with Dallas parents

Monica Calton saw history Thursday. After stopping at a far north Fort Worth Olive Garden, only because she saw news media vehicles and police cars parked outside, she got a glimpse of first lady Michelle Obama. | 02/10/12 07:30:29 By - Anna M. Tinsley

Farmers still fighting for immigrant guest-worker program

California and Southern farmers renewed their case Thursday for some kind of an agricultural guest-worker program, but they're sailing against the wind. Make that a hurricane. | 02/09/12 15:54:00 By - Michael Doyle

Gay marriage fight may hinge on Supreme Court's Anthony Kennedy

The Supreme Court has nine justices, but if the constitutional fight over same-sex marriage reaches them this year, the decision will probably come down to just one: a California Republican and Reagan-era conservative who has nonetheless written the court's two leading gay rights opinions. | 02/09/12 14:16:25 By - David G. Savage

Two Alaska children were left in room open to 30-below-zero cold

When police entered a Barrow, Alaska, apartment last week on a report of a child not breathing, they found a caregiver smelling of alcohol, two "extremely" hypothermic and naked children, and a child's bedroom with the window open to the arctic winter, according to documents filed by prosecutors | 02/09/12 12:02:24 By - Richard Mauer

California Fish and Game to sue Army Corps over levee tree ban

The state Department of Fish and Game in California plans to sue the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers because the Corps requires that all trees and shrubs be cut down on levees. The Central Valley has little of its historic streamside habitat left, leaving the levees as habitat for many rare species. | 02/09/12 10:38:28 By - Matt Weiser

New estimate of Hanford cleanup is $112 billion

The new price of finishing cleanup of the Hanford nuclear reservation is $112 billion. It estiamtes the costs through 2065 for cleaning up radioactive and chemical waste from the production of plutonium for nuclear weapons during World War II and the Cold War. | 02/09/12 10:21:32 By - Annette Cary