WASHINGTON (AP) — The seasoned diplomat who penned a highly critical report on security at a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya, defended his scathing assessment but absolved then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. "We knew where the responsibility rested," Thomas Pickering said Sunday.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Think you've heard of every way possible to quit smoking? Etta Mae Lopez came up with a new one: slap a cop and go to jail, where smoking isn't allowed.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Jake Anderson didn't have to delve too deep into the University of Missouri's agricultural economics program before realizing he was destined to return to the 1,500-acre family farm. After all, that's been the Anderson family trade since 1891, when his great-great grandfather came to Callaway County from Sweden.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Internal Revenue Service is apologizing for what it acknowledges was "inappropriate" targeting of conservative political groups during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status.

WACO, Texas (AP) — Texas law enforcement officials on Friday launched a criminal investigation into the massive fertilizer plant explosion that killed 14 people last month, after weeks of largely treating the blast as an industrial accident.

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Former dictator Efrain Rios Montt's conviction of genocide is a historic moment in a country still healing from a brutal, three-decade civil war and his trial offered Guatemala's oppressed indigenous communities their first chance to be heard, human rights activists said.

NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — Newtown parents Steven Uhde and Peter Barresi didn't want the town to abandon the elementary school property where 20 first-graders and six educators were killed in December and build a new school elsewhere, saying that would be like letting the gunman win.