An assistant district attorney has been fatally shot as he walked toward his workplace at a North Texas county courthouse.

Vice President Joe Biden says curbs on guns can reduce firearm deaths but won't ensure an end to mass killings like December's slaying of 20 first-graders in Newtown, Conn.

Beyonce said she's a "perfectionist" and wanted her performance for President Barack Obama to be a memorable one. She called the day "emotional."

Mary Lee and a second great white, Genie, were tagged in September. Genie headed south but because she doesn't surface as much, her travels are less well-known.

After several years of not funding local governments at the level state law requires, South Carolina legislators are looking to change the law.

Defense attorney Dylan Goff said Thursday his client had been indicted by the Horry County Grand Jury on charges of first-degree burglary and petit larceny.

Atlanta's police chief says an armed officer working at a city middle school where a teen was shot was able to disarm the suspect moments after the shooting.

Authorities say 35-year-old Tommy Mixon has cameras installed near his home because of earlier thefts. An incident report states the alarm went off early Wednesday and Mixon saw two teens standing by his truck.

A coastal Georgia man has pleaded guilty to stealing loggerhead sea turtle eggs and U.S. attorney's officials say he was planning to sell them.

Negotiators have been talking through a 4-inch-wide ventilation pipe to a man holding a 5-year-old boy hostage in an underground shelter in rural Alabama.

Authorities say the trooper encountered two people, and shot one of them. The trooper was not injured. The condition of the man who was shot was not immediately known.

State Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens is offering tips to help Georgians file claims associated with the storm system that tore through the state Wednesday.

A gunman holed up in a bunker with a 6-year-old hostage is continuing to keep law officers at bay in rural Alabama.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has declared a state of emergency in Bartow and Gordon counties, areas that were hardest hit during a suspected tornado.

A Senate subcommittee on Wednesday is to consider several pieces of legislation that would set parameters for how the process would be handled.

Emergency management officials say the large storm front blacked out thousands in Arkansas and has caused scattered power outages in northern Mississippi.

The South Carolina Supreme Court will hear an appeal later this year from a Republican activist who accused Gov. Nikki Haley of ethics violations.

Slave descendants who own island property off the Georgia coast are fighting whopping tax increases that they say threatens one of the last Gullah-Geechee communities in the South.

A state official says South Carolina's military communities are facing looming budget pressures that could slice into civilian and military jobs.

The vote came just hours after the Foreign Relations Committee approved his nomination by voice vote. Kerry has led the committee for the past four years.

Delta Air Lines is planning to open outdoor terraces with sweeping runway views for its Delta Sky Clubs members at New York's John F. Kennedy and Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airports.

Beaufort County deputies say a woman's body was found in a burning car near Bluffton and there was no sign the vehicle had been in a wreck.

State officials say a three-year effort to evaluate and upgrade computer security systems at state agencies should begin in March.

Wilson's office says the Republican will be joined by Opher Aviran, Israeli Consul General for the Southeast.

Congress is sending a $50.5 billion emergency relief measure for Superstorm Sandy victims to President Barack Obama for his signature.