From the Wire

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Ferguson, Missouri, is making progress in the effort to end racial bias in police and court practices, but the city needs to be more transparent, attorneys for the U.S. Department of Justice told a federal judge Thursday....

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Missouri Republican Gov. Eric Greitens says he prefers a ramped-up House version of a bill to tighten state abortion laws...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- A Missouri circuit judge says Republican Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft's office wrote a confusing and grammatically incorrect summary of a referendum to repeal right to work....

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- A former Kansas City physician was sentenced to one year and three months in federal prison without parole for a fraud scheme that involved disability exams for veterans....

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- A court hearing was reset for a 34-year-old man suspected of killing his young daughter in Illinois, forcing his wife into prostitution in Las Vegas and abusing two daughters kept hidden in an apartment....

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- A hyper-aggressive black bear moved back and forth between two women in a ferocious attack earlier this week that left a newlywed dead and her co-worker injured in a remote area of Alaska, their employer said Thursday....

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- California's attorney general blocked state-funded travel to Texas and three other states on Thursday in response to what he considers anti-LGBT rights laws enacted this year....

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Friday:...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- The Latest on a fatal black bear attack in Alaska (all times local):...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A wildfire near a southern Utah ski town that has forced hundreds of people to evacuate has doubled in size in high winds and drove out residents of 400 additional homes, authorities said Thursday....

CHELSEA, Mass. (AP) -- Police in Massachusetts are crediting a huge stuffed cow with saving 2-year-old boy who fell out of a second-story window and onto concrete below....

SALEM, Ore. (AP) -- Concern is growing in a conservative, remote corner of Oregon as people start arriving in a national forest for a Rainbow Family of Living Light annual gathering, a counter-culture get-together expected to draw thousands....

DETROIT (AP) -- A judge has temporarily halted the deportation of more than 100 Iraqi Christians living in the Detroit area who fear torture and possible death if sent back to Iraq....

HONOLULU (AP) -- The U.S. Missile Defense Agency said it failed to intercept a ballistic missile during a test off Hawaii....

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- The American Civil Liberties Union is asking an Oklahoma court to release a woman serving 30 years in prison for failing to report the abuse of her two children by her boyfriend....

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- A former Mexican lawmaker arrested at the California border was charged Thursday with working for the Sinaloa drug cartel, whose once-powerful kingpin, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, was extradited to the United States in January....

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- A federal judge branded Wisconsin's juvenile prison for boys as a "troubled institution" on Thursday, saying it puts too many inmates in isolation and over-relies on pepper spray and shackles when other less intrusive alternatives to control behavior could be used....

MEDIA, Pa. (AP) -- Prosecutors say a 56-year-old man who referred to himself as "dirty old Santa" traveled to a Philadelphia suburb to have a sexual tryst with a 14-year-old girl he lured online and has been arrested....

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- The American Civil Liberties Union is accusing law enforcement officers in Minnesota of a brutal attack on an assault suspect....

BARNESVILLE, Pa. (AP) -- Police say an attorney found dead in the home of his estranged wife, the treasurer of a Pennsylvania county, was fatally beaten by his son with a bat on Father's Day....

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Set free after 36 years in prison for a murder conviction that took decades to unravel, John Floyd donned a black T-shirt bearing the word "justice" Thursday before leaving the courthouse where a federal judge formally signed off on his release....

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Officials denied parole Thursday for convicted killer Patricia Krenwinkel - a follower of cult leader Charles Manson - after considering whether battered women's syndrome affected her state of mind at the time of the notorious murders nearly five decades ago in California....

DETROIT (AP) -- Authorities say a Canadian man from Tunisia crossed legally into the U.S. days before stabbing a police officer in the neck at a Michigan airport. The attack raises questions about security along the northern border, including what the process is for travelers and how many people are detained or denied entry. A look at some common questions and answers....

HELENA, Mont. (AP) -- The Latest on removing Yellowstone region grizzly bears from federal protections (all times local):...

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- Two California men have been charged with a string of felony counts stemming from a criminal case that created a buzz among beekeepers across the country, authorities said Thursday....

ATLANTA (AP) -- A 39-year-old man accused of shooting a woman on an Atlanta street in broad daylight has been indicted....

A historic women's college in Georgia is apologizing for its past connections to racism and the Ku Klux Klan....

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) -- Firefighters had to rescue a man after his minivan became wedged in a drawbridge in downtown Green Bay....

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- A federal panel voted on Thursday to offer new protections to some deep-sea corals in the Atlantic Ocean but held off on protecting others so it can get more information first....

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- The Latest on a federal panel's consideration of protections for Atlantic deep-sea corals (all times local):...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- A Virginia man caught with $16,500 in cash in his carry-on luggage was charged Thursday with transmitting top-secret documents to an apparent Chinese agent....

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- An Arizona investigator said Thursday he is confident a baby left at a Las Vegas-area church is the same one that authorities have for weeks been searching for across three states....

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- An indictment says a former supervisor at a South Carolina juvenile prison ordered guards to hog-tie two inmates and leave them on their stomachs for two hours because they made too much noise....

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A U.S. District Court judge deciding whether a fellow judge should disqualify himself from lawsuits over videos by an anti-abortion group said Thursday he could not immediately see any appearance of bias....

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- Sanford Health is on the verge of absorbing another health care provider in the Dakotas, though the move is being contested in federal court....

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) -- The towering Confederate monuments in Virginia's capital city shouldn't be taken down, but instead should be supplemented with historical context about why they were built, Richmond's mayor said Thursday....

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- The Latest on a federal panel's consideration of protections for Atlantic deep-sea corals (all times local):...

SEATTLE (AP) -- A class-action lawsuit challenging a once-secret government program that delayed immigration and citizenship applications by Muslims can move forward, a federal judge has ruled....

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) -- A man accused of fatally shooting an Ohio SWAT officer during a standoff last year has been found guilty of aggravated murder and could face the death penalty....

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- Nearly two years after it last flew, South Carolina's final Confederate flag remains in the same place it was taken immediately after it was removed from the flagpole in front of the Statehouse: a small, flat white acid-free box behind several locked doors....

PALMDALE, Calif. (AP) -- A teenager shot to death by deputies was accidentally hit by a bullet as he tried to stop an aggressive dog from attacking the officers early Thursday, according to Los Angeles County sheriff's officials....

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- The Latest on Tropical Storm Cindy (all times local):...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Jurors in the case of an ex-Vanderbilt University football player charged with rape will have to decide if he was bullied into the assault - and if so, whether that's enough to clear him of charges....

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Minneapolis' first openly gay police chief responded sharply Thursday to a decision by organizers of the Twin Cities Pride Parade to ask her department to minimize its participation in Sunday's annual event due to tensions over the police shooting of Philando Castile....

BEAR, Del. (AP) -- A police dog chasing an armed robbery suspect in Delaware bit a 15-year-old boy....

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- High tides in the wake of a weakening Tropical Depression Cindy prompted a voluntary evacuation in a coastal Louisiana town Thursday, and the storm's effects were being felt throughout the Southeast, with intermittent bands of heavy rain, blasts of high wind and periodic warnings of possible tornadoes in multiple states....

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- The Latest on a man who was imprisoned for 36 years before a federal judge threw out his murder conviction and life sentence for a slaying in New Orleans (all times local):...

MILBRIDGE, Maine (AP) -- A Maine kayaker found by the U.S. Coast Guard shortly after a search for him was suspended says a wave knocked him out of his vessel and he eventually was able to swim to land after issuing a "mayday" call on his radio....

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- A state Education Department hearing got underway Thursday for a one-time candidate for New York governor who publicly insulted former President Barack Obama and his wife and stands accused of disclosing confidential school board business....

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- The Latest on a state Education Department hearing for a former candidate for New York governor who is accused of disclosing confidential board of education business in Buffalo (all times local):...

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Philadelphia police say a man repossessing a minivan towed it with a sleeping child in the back....

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- A Kansas City, Missouri, man is charged with child pornography after prosecutors say he gave a 7-year-old girl a pack of gum to pose for nude photos....

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) -- The Latest on Mississippi law dealing with religious objections to same-sex marriage (all times local):...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A judge said Thursday that he won't allow lawyers for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl to ask potential military jurors whether they voted for President Donald Trump as the defense seeks signs of bias against their client....

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) -- Authorities have recovered the body of the second teenager who was swept away by a strong current while swimming off Atlantic City....