RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A civil liberties group filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday on behalf of an ex-Marine who was detained in a psychiatric facility after posting anti-government messages on Facebook, using the case to criticize a program that looks for veterans who may have become extremists.

PHOENIX (AP) — Jurors in the Jodi Arias murder trial told the judge Wednesday they were unable to reach a unanimous verdict on whether the convicted murderer should be sentenced to life in prison or death for killing her one-time boyfriend, prompting the judge to instruct them to continue deliberations and try to work through their differences.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that four American citizens have been killed in drone strikes since 2009 in Pakistan and Yemen.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The next mayor of Los Angeles was able to defeat a fellow Democrat by depicting her as a pawn of utility union bosses in the city long friendly to labor, an outcome expected to echo beyond California as unions nationwide face threats to their clout.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Members of a House panel angry over the growing epidemic of sexual assaults in the military took a key step toward tackling the problem by passing legislation Wednesday that would strip commanding officers of their longstanding authority to unilaterally change or dismiss court-martial convictions in rape and assault cases.

In a medical first, doctors used plastic particles and a 3-D laser printer to create an airway splint to save the life of a baby boy who used to stop breathing nearly every day.

WASHINGTON (AP) — An Army sergeant has been charged with secretly photographing and videotaping at least a dozen women at the U.S.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is showing singer-songwriter Carole King that she has friends at the White House. In the East Room on Wednesday night, Obama is presenting the 71-year-old singer-songwriter with the Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A key House committee chairman on Wednesday sharply criticized a wide-ranging immigration bill just passed by a Senate committee, underscoring the difficulties ahead as the politically volatile measure moves forward in a divided Congress.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A Chechen immigrant who was being questioned about his ties to one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects was shot to death early Wednesday after he lunged at an FBI agent with a knife, officials said.

GRAPEVINE, Texas (AP) — The Boy Scouts of America has started its meeting in which members of its national council are to decide whether to change the group's long-standing ban on openly gay boys.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's nominee for transportation secretary is getting a friendly reception from senators of both parties laced with warnings that the nation needs to make a host of transportation improvements with no clear way to pay for them.

BANGOR, Maine (AP) — Police laid out their case Wednesday against a man accused of killing a 15-year-old girl whose body was found in a wooded area miles from her home, but the details remained hidden from public view after a judge sealed a crucial affidavit at the request of the suspect's lawyer.

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — When Michael Klunder enticed two girls to enter his pickup truck near a rural Iowa school bus stop Monday, it was at least his third kidnapping in a long criminal history in which he was ordered to receive sex offender treatment as a teenager, according to police.

SWARTHMORE, Pa. (AP) — Student activists at more than 200 colleges are trying a new tactic in hopes of slowing the pace of climate change: They are asking their schools to stop investing in fossil fuel companies.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Philadelphia couple who believe in faith healing over medicine and who were on probation in their son's pneumonia death were charged with murder Wednesday after a second young child died under what a prosecutor called "eerily similar" circumstances.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The baseball star, the Hollywood 10, Oliver North. And Lois Lerner of the IRS. The official enmeshed in a probe of the tax agency is the latest on a roll call of witnesses called before Congress who refused to answer lawmakers' questions.

LUBBOCK, Texas (AP) — The driver of a parade float involved in a train wreck that killed four war veterans in Texas told investigators that the oncoming train appeared to be stationary, and that he didn't notice anything was wrong until he saw people jumping from the float, according to documents released Wednesday.

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A dam that threatened to give way and flood a North Dakota town was holding back the water on Wednesday, though the 1,300 residents of Cavalier were still being told to stay away from their homes.

MOORE, Okla. (AP) — The tornado that tore through an Oklahoma City suburb destroyed or damaged as many as 13,000 homes and may have caused $2 billion in overall damage, officials said Wednesday.

SLEEPY HOLLOW, N.Y. (AP) — They hesitated at first, but then they came from all over the church: young women in black shuffling out of the pews and down the side aisles to the altar, some of them sobbing.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) — It was the customer service disaster heard around the Internet. An Arizona restaurateur, fed up after years of negative online reviews and an embarrassing appearance on a reality television show, allegedly posted a social media rant laced with salty language and angry, uppercase letters that quickly went viral last week, to the delight of people who love a good Internet meltdown.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service official at the center of the storm over the agency's targeting of conservative groups told Congress on Wednesday that she had done nothing wrong in the episode, and then invoked her constitutional right to refuse to answer lawmakers' questions.