Ken Stanford

U.S. factory output rose for a fifth straight month in December, as manufacturers cranked out more cars and trucks, appliances and processed food. The gains suggest factories gave economic growth a strong boost at the end of the year.

U.S. employers advertised more jobs in November and more Americans quit, positive signs for millions who are unemployed and looking for work.

Gov. Jerry Brown formally proclaimed California in a drought Friday, saying the state is in the midst of perhaps the worst dry spell it has seen in a century, and the conditions are putting residents and their property in "extreme peril."

Firefighters were chasing flare-ups Friday morning in a damaging wildfire that was largely tamed but kept thousands of people from their homes in the foothill suburbs northeast of Los Angeles.

A nearly 2-year-old requirement that almost all of Pennsylvania's 8.2 million voters must show photo identification before casting a ballot was struck down Friday by a state judge, setting the stage for a courtroom showdown before the state's highest court.

Seeking to calm a furor over U.S. surveillance, President Barack Obama on Friday called for ending the government's control of phone data from hundreds of millions of Americans and immediately ordered intelligence agencies to get a secretive court's permission before accessing the records.

Uganda's president opposes an anti-gay bill passed by lawmakers that calls for life imprisonment for gays, even as he characterizes homosexuals as "abnormal" who should be rehabilitated, according to excerpts of his letter to the speaker of parliament.