AP Posts

Syrian President Bashar Assad says his government has agreed to surrender its chemical weapons in response to Russia's initiative and not because of the U.S. threat of attack.

President Barack Obama voiced his conviction Tuesday night that Syrian President Bashar Assad was to blame for deadly chemical attacks against civilians, but again he offered no proof.

President Barack Obama said in a nationally televised address Tuesday night that recent diplomatic steps offer "the potential to remove the threat of chemical weapons" inside Syria without the use of force, but he also insisted the U.S. military will keep the pressure on President Bashar Assad "and be ready to respond" if other measures fail.

Iowa law enforcement officials are debating the wisdom of granting gun permits to blind people. The Des Moines Register reported that Iowa law doesn't allow sheriffs to deny a permit to carry a gun in public based on physical ability.

George Zimmerman's wife, Shellie, said she stood by her man "through everything" but once he was acquitted of murder charges in the 2012 shooting of teenager Trayvon Martin, he left her with "a bunch of pieces of broken glass."

Israel pushed forward Sunday with plans to construct 1,500 apartments in east Jerusalem in a move that could undermine recently renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. City spokeswoman Brachie Sprung said city officials had approved plans to lay down infrastructure for the project.

North Carolina 's new voting law hurts the Republican Party by driving away potential supporters and punishes minority voters, former Pentagon general Colin Powell said Thursday.

The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

The state attorney's office in Marion County says no homicide charges will be filed against an Ocala teenager who shot and killed a 40-year-old man, saying the shooting was justified under Florida's "stand your ground" law.

The company that runs the shuttle service to the Albuquerque airport's rental-car center is apologizing after a driver allegedly ordered a gay couple to sit in the back of the shuttle bus.

Standard Parking Inc. said it respects the equal rights of all customers and doesn't tolerate discrimination of any kind. It also said the employee was suspended after the company learned in July of the late June incident.

The company that runs the shuttle service to the Albuquerque airport's rental-car center is apologizing after a driver allegedly ordered a gay couple to sit in the back of the shuttle bus.

Standard Parking Inc. said it respects the equal rights of all customers and doesn't tolerate discrimination of any kind. It also said the employee was suspended after the company learned in July of the late June incident.

Rhode Island's governor has vetoed legislation to authorize a "Choose Life" license plate that would have raised money for a Christian crisis pregnancy center that opposes abortion.

British lawmakers have passed a bill legalizing same-sex marriage in England and Wales, with the first gay weddings expected to take place by next summer.

The removal of food stamps from the farm bill is a culmination of years of work to constrict and undermine the program. From President Bush’s veto of a food aid funding increase in mid-2008 to Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budgets that would cut the program by more than a hundred billion dollars, the GOP has sought to curb food stamps for years.

Conservative Costa Rican lawmakers are getting a lesson in the importance of reading the fine print. They were mortified last week after realizing that they may have accidentally approved language making same-sex unions legal when they passed a piece of legislation.

New limits on ammunition magazines will continue in Colorado while sheriffs seek to overturn the law in court after attorneys in the case agreed on some technical fixes. A federal judge in Denver says there was nothing for her to rule on because attorneys for the state and the sheriffs had hammered out an agreement late Tuesday.

A person close to former Gov. Eliot Spitzer says he is planning a return to political life with a run for New York City comptroller. The former state attorney general plans to run as a Democrat in the wide-open field for comptroller.

Federal agency accident records show that the ExxonMobil pipeline that spilled thousands of gallons of oil near Little Rock in March has had at least 13 minor leaks since 2002.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed into law a measure that stigmatizes gay people and bans giving children any information about homosexuality.

State officials and nonprofit leaders believe Oregon is the first state in the nation to pass a charity law that punishes nonprofits that spend too little of their money on their missions.