MIAMI (AP) -- Franky the drug dog's super-sensitive nose is at the heart of a question being put to the U.S. Supreme Court: Does a police K-9's sniff outside a house give officers the right to get a search warrant for illegal drugs, or is the sniff itself an unconstitutional search?

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A State Department official says a German man was identified as a suspect in the Los Angeles arson spree because his mother was the subject of a provisional arrest request by Germany.

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- An ``Avatar'' hangover accounted for Hollywood's dismal showing early this year, when revenues lagged far behind 2010 receipts that had been inflated by the huge success of James Cameron's sci-fi sensation.

RICHMOND, Virginia (AP) -- When Thomas Jefferson died, scores of slaves were sold from his Monticello plantation to settle his debts. Peter Fossett, 11, was among them, recalling that he was ``born and reared as free, not knowing that I was a slave, then suddenly, at the death of Jefferson, put on an auction block and sold to strangers.''

Manning and Maretta Jeter might never fully recover from losing their daughter, but they know Marisha would be happy to know her memory is living on in the form of the Marisha Sharay Jeter Scholarship Fund -- an annual award that's helping give other young scholars the college experience she never had.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans are hopeful for what 2012 will bring for their families and the country, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll, though most say 2011 was a year they would rather forget.

VICKSBURG, Miss. (AP) -- A lot of people who have heard the story over the years still don't believe it, Wallace Goza says of his surviving a fall from the top of an electrical pole 48 years ago.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Almost two centuries before there was a man named Obama in the White House, there was a man named Obama shackled in the bowels of a slave ship. There is no proof that the unidentified Obama has ties to President Barack Obama. All they share is a name. But that is exactly the commonality that Emory University researchers hope to build upon as they delve into the origins of Africans who were stolen from their homes and sold.

NEW YORK (AP) -- It was a good year in the ratings for cable news networks. Or a rough one. It depends on your perspective. Fox News Channel continued its dominance, with an average viewership that exceeded CNN and MSNBC combined in prime time and for the entire day, the Nielsen ratings company said this week.

To mark the 150th anniversary of Wells' birth in 2012, an effort is under way to build a sculpture to honor her legacy at the site of the housing development and renew her relevance for future generations.