Updated: 1:15 PM Past its own New Year's deadline, a weary Congress sent President Barack Obama legislation to avoid a national "fiscal cliff".

Updated: 1:15 PM Classes are starting Thursday at a repurposed school for students who survived a shooting rampage three weeks ago in Newtown, Conn.

Posted: 9:51 PM Survivors of a fatal bus crash on a rural Oregon highway are retrieving their passports and other belongings so they can finish their journey to Canada.

Posted: 9:50 PM Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett says he plans to sue the NCAA in federal court over sanctions imposed against Penn State in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sexual abuse scandal.

Posted: 7:51 AM A Senate report has found that the White House did not make major changes in the talking points administration officials used after the deadly attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya.

Posted: 7:50 AM Same-sex couples in Maryland are holding marriage ceremonies, as gay marriage became legal in the first state south of the Mason-Dixon Line on New Year's Day.

Posted: 7:49 AM The Senate has passed legislation to block the impact of across-the-board tax increases and spending cuts that make up the fiscal cliff.

Posted: 10:25 PM Highlights of a tentative agreement Monday between the White House and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., aimed at averting wide tax increases and budget cuts scheduled to take effect in the new year.

Posted: 9:42 PM From teeming Times Square to a once-isolated Asian country celebrating its first public New Year's Eve countdown in decades, the world looked to the start of 2013 with hope for renewal after a year of economic turmoil, searing violence and natural disasters.

Updated: 9:25 PM A Democratic aide says the White House and congressional Republicans have reached an agreement to avert the so-called fiscal cliff.

Posted: 4:12 PM Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell says he and the White House have agreed on preventing tax hikes that the "fiscal cliff" will trigger after midnight. And he says they are very close to an overall deal that would also prevent budget-wide spending cuts.

Posted: 4:11 PM Hundreds of thousands of workers are set to get a pay raise to start 2013, as 10 states increase their minimum wage.

Posted: 6:55 AM Efforts to save the nation from going over a year-end "fiscal cliff" were still in disarray as lawmakers returned to the Capitol to confront the tax-and-spend crisis.

Posted: 6:53 AM A psychiatric evaluation has been ordered for a woman accused of shoving a man to his death in front of a subway train because she believed he was Muslim.

Posted: 6:52 AM The Kardashian clan is getting bigger: Kanye West and Kim Kardashian are expecting their first child.

Posted: 6:50 AM Tribune Co. announced it is emerging after more four years of bankruptcy.

Posted: 9:11 PM President Barack Obama has signed into law a five-year extension of the U.S. government's authority to monitor the overseas activity of suspected foreign spies and terrorists.

Posted: 9:10 PM Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has been admitted to a New York hospital after the discovery of a blood clot stemming from the concussion she sustained earlier this month.

Posted: 4:58 PM Authorities say five people died and about 20 more were injured in a tour bus crash on an icy stretch of interstate in Oregon.

Posted: 3:18 PM Funeral plans are set for five young siblings and an adult who died when a sport utility vehicle driven by the children's father careened off a Mississippi road and into a creek.

Posted: 3:14 PM A woman charged in the death of an immigrant who was pushed off a New York City subway platform has been ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation.

Posted: 3:12 PM The top leaders in both parties on the House and Senate Agriculture committees have agreed to a one-year extension of the 2008 farm bill that expired in October, a move that would head off a possible doubling of milk prices next month.

Posted: 9:19 PM A passenger airliner careered off the runway at Russia's third-busiest airport and partly onto a highway while landing on Saturday, broke into pieces and caught fire, killing at least four people.

Posted: 3:53 PM Confused about the federal budget struggle? So are doctors, hospital administrators and other professionals who serve the 100 million Americans covered by Medicare and Medicaid.

Posted: 3:50 PM New York City police say they have a suspect in custody in the death of a man who was shoved in front of a speeding subway train.