NEW YORK (AP) -- Microsoft Corp. said Tuesday that it has agreed to buy the popular Internet telephone service Skype SA for $8.5 billion in the biggest deal in the software maker's 36-year history.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A man who pounded on the cockpit door as an American Airlines flight from Chicago approached San Francisco on Sunday evening has no clear or known ties to terrorism, police said on Monday.

ATLANTA (AP) -- Newt Gingrich is running for president. The former House speaker disclosed his bid on Twitter and Facebook on Monday and urged followers to tune into Fox News on Wednesday.

On Friday, Apr. 28, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) held a press conference launching a new program to address homeowner scams entitled, "Know it. Avoid It. Report It." This is a part of a new campaign starting in Los Angeles as well as Chicago and Miami. Representatives of organizations who came together to address this growing issue attended the conference.

GREENWOOD, Mississippi (AP) -- When bluesman Robert Johnson died broke and all but unknown in a tiny Mississippi crossroads town, he was buried in a homemade coffin and an unmarked grave. Yet, a century after he came into this world, his eerie blues still influence artists from Eric Clapton to John Mayer, and his legacy continues to be celebrated.
His posthumous CD sales number well over a million. His name moves merchandise.

ATLANTA (AP) -- A man said he was barred from a county courtroom on Thursday because he refused to remove his Muslim head covering, nearly two years after Georgia's judges voted to allow religious headwear in all state courtrooms.

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- The U.S. Justice Department has decided not pursue criminal charges against three white Pittsburgh police officers in connection with the beating of a black teenage arts student, the department announced Wednesday.
The department said in a statement that it was closing an investigation into the Jan. 12, 2010, beating of 18-year-old Jordan Miles, a violist who attended the city's prestigious Creative and Performing Arts High School.

The death penalty system in North Carolina costs millions of dollars a year and does not make the state safer, a new report from Appalachian State University Professor Dr. Matthew Robinson reveals.
Robinson, Professor of Government and Justice Studies at Appalachian State University, analyzed years of data about the state's capital punishment system, from dozens of sources. His analysis showed that the death penalty is expensive, ineffective, and biased — and that it poses a serious risk to innocent people.

South African running phenomenon Caster Semenya, who triumphed in several major races while facing humiliation over an ambiguous sex identity, has set another record.
No other woman runner will be judged by the "I know it when I see it" method or have to learn from watching TV that her sex has been questioned.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has unanimously declared that Mumia Abu-Jamal's death sentence is unconstitutional.  In today's decision, the Court of Appeals reaffirmed its 2008 finding that Mr. Abu-Jamal's sentencing jury was misled about the process for considering evidence supporting a life sentence.