A frustrated judge, begrudging prosecutors and chagrined family members all conceded Thursday that offering a plea deal to a southeast Missouri man accused of killing his estranged wife, a mother of 5-year-old triplets who was missing for almost two years before her body was found last week on an island in the nearby Mississippi River, was inadequate.

On a radio show they hosted called "The Pursuit of Happiness," John Littig and Lynne Rosen urged listeners to embrace spontaneity.

The search for victims of a building collapse that killed six people wound down Thursday amid mounting questions about whether the demolition company that was tearing down the structure caused the tragedy by cutting corners.

A suburban San Antonio school district said it's reviewing training guidelines after a teacher allegedly duct taped an 8-year-old student to a chair _ a year after another teacher was accused of ordering kindergartners to take turns hitting a classmate.

Defense attorneys for three Somalis charged with the murders of four Americans aboard their pirated yacht say there's no evidence proving their clients fired the fatal shots.

Two Massachusetts residents have sued the New York Post, saying the newspaper falsely portrayed them as suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings in part by featuring them on the front page under the headline "Bag Men."

More than 190 criminal and civil actions have been brought across the country over the past two years to combat the rising problem of timeshare resale fraud involving shady telemarketing operations, federal and state officials said Thursday.

The courtyard outside the Bradford County Courthouse in north Florida will soon become home to a monument to atheism.

Citing a history of inmate deaths, sexual assaults, beatings, stabbings and poor medical care at the New Orleans jail, a federal judge on Thursday approved an agreement between the U.S. Justice Department and the city's sheriff aimed at reforming the notoriously dangerous lockup.

A gay couple is pursuing a discrimination complaint against a Colorado bakery, saying the business refused them a wedding cake to honor their Massachusetts ceremony, and alleging that the owners have a history of turning away same-sex couples.

Gunfire echoed through downtown and law enforcement helicopters swooped low among office towers Thursday, but it was all a drill as the Police Department's counterterrorism unit demonstrated a response to a weapon-of-mass-destruction threat.

The remains of a soldier who was considered missing In action during the Korean War is set to be returned to his relatives in Alabama.

A New York City woman pleaded guilty Thursday to engaging in a fraudulent fundraising scheme in which she posed as the aunt of a child killed in the mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school in December.

Connecticut lawmakers are setting aside up to $50 million to help Newtown build a new school to replace the one where a shooting massacre took place last year.

Six people were killed when a building being demolished collapsed Thursday and nearly obliterated an adjacent Salvation Army thrift store.

It's a life or death matter: Who gets the next scarce donated organ? In an unprecedented challenge to the nation's transplant system, a federal judge has allowed one dying child _ and a day later another _ to essentially jump the line in rulings that could have ramifications for thousands of people awaiting new organs.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan and his successors would be relegated to cheerleaders for the nation's schools, and governors would be put in charge of classrooms under companion bills Senate and House Republicans introduced Thursday.

The government knows who you're calling.

Don't expect to see morning-after pills for all ages on drugstore shelves anytime soon. A federal appeals court decision allowing girls of any age to buy emergency contraception without a prescription won't immediately change access.

Republican mega-donor Harold Simmons' remote hazardous waste dump in West Texas began accepting low-level radioactive material Thursday from a federal lab in New Mexico _ the latest step in Simmons' vision of a site that accept all types of waste.