Hinds County Circuit Judge Tommie Green ruled Tuesday that a one-year statute of limitations elapsed between the time Stockett gave Ablene Cooper a copy of the book in January 2009 and the time of the lawsuit's filing in February of this year.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- Mississippi authorities have upgraded a murder charge to capital murder for a white teenager accused of intentionally running over a black man with a truck.

NEW YORK (AP) -- Community members in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood are gathering to mark the 20th anniversary of race riots there.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Texting and driving don't go well together - though not in the way you might think. Computer hackers can force some cars to unlock their doors and start their engines without a key by sending specially crafted messages to a car's anti-theft system. They can also snoop at where you've been by tapping the car's GPS system.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage has fallen to its lowest level on records dating to 1971.

LONDON (AP) -- A new oil sheen was spotted in the Gulf of Mexico, although energy company BP said Thursday the discovery had nothing to do with its operations and was far from the site of its disaster-hit Macondo well.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- After a summer of recall elections stemming from how Wisconsin lawmakers reacted to Gov. Scott Walker's proposal curbing public employee union rights, Republicans emerged bruised but not beaten while Democrats expressed optimism the tide was turning their way.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- Tobacco companies want a judge to put a stop to new graphic cigarette labels that include the sewn-up corpse of a smoker and pictures of diseased lungs, saying they unfairly urge adults to shun their legal products and will cost millions to produce.

A national study on child well-being to be published Wednesday found that child poverty increased in 38 states from 2000 to 2009. As a result, 14.7 million children, 20 percent, were poor in 2009. That represents a 2.5 million increase from 2000, when 17 percent of the nation's youth lived in low-income homes.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- Wisconsin Democrats sought Tuesday to hold the ground they gained in last week's recall elections by fending off Republican attempts to oust two senators who fled the state in opposition to Gov. Scott Walker's proposal curbing public employee collective bargaining rights.