WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama on Thursday forcefully rejected Republican accusations that his foreign policy is timid and amounts to a policy of "appeasement."

BOSTON (AP) -- A diminished Occupy Boston encampment held its ground early Friday after police decided not to immediately enforce a midnight deadline that the mayor had set for them to leave a city square.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- An online advocacy group wants corporations that market to African Americans to stop giving money to a conservative organization working for stricter voting laws.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A Texas parolee now suspected in a deadly Craigslist robbery scheme was mistakenly released from Ohio custody last summer not once but twice.

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Recovery teams using all-terrain vehicles prepared to trek up a rugged canyon near Lake Mead Thursday to retrieve five bodies from a remote site where a tour helicopter crashed during a sunset sightseeing flight over the Las Vegas Strip and Hoover Dam.

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- Florida A&M President James Ammons said Monday the university is committed to breaking a conspiracy of silence that has for decades shrouded hazing practices at the school and finally resulted in a band member's death.

CHICAGO (AP) -- Rod Blagojevich, the ousted Illinois governor whose three-year battle against criminal charges became a national spectacle, was sentenced to 14 years in prison Wednesday, one of the stiffest penalties imposed for corruption in a state with a history of crooked politics.

DETROIT (AP) -- Former Miss USA Rima Fakih was speeding and weaving through traffic with an uncorked, half-empty bottle of champagne and a blood-alcohol level more than twice the legal limit when she was arrested in the Detroit enclave of Highland Park, according to a police report released Tuesday.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Federal regulators have issued a second set of violations against BP for activities related to the 2010 blown-out well that led to the deaths of 11 rig workers and the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

LAREDO, Texas (AP) -- A mother who had been denied welfare benefits killed herself and shot her two children after a seven-hour standoff at a government social services office, police said.