Ken Stanford

President Barack Obama opened a day of tributes to former President John F. Kennedy on Wednesday by bestowing the Presidential Medal of Freedom on prominent Americans, 50 years after Kennedy was assassinated weeks short of the medal's first award ceremony.

Back when Yahoo was something hollered at a rodeo and no one could conceive of Googling anything, President Ronald Reagan signed an executive order that extended the power of U.S. intelligence agencies overseas, allowing broader surveillance of non-U.S. suspects. At the time, no one imagined he was granting authority to spy on what became known as Silicon Valley.

Iran's supreme leader voiced support Wednesday for the negotiations over his country's nuclear program, but insisted there are limits to the concessions Iran will make in exchange for an easing of the sanctions choking its economy.

Consumers shrugged off the 16-day partial government shutdown and spent more on autos, clothing and furniture in October, boosting U.S. retail sales by the most in four months. Meanwhile, another report shows that consumer prices are down from a month ago.

Tavarez Holston is the new Vice President for Academic Affairs (VPAA) at Lanier Technical College.

Joseph Paul Franklin, a white supremacist who targeted blacks and Jews in a cross-country killing spree from 1977 to 1980, was put to death Wednesday in Missouri.

A United Methodist clergyman convicted of breaking church law for officiating at his son's same-sex wedding was suspended late Tuesday, and ordered by a jury of his fellow pastors to surrender his credentials in a month if he can't bring himself to adhere to the laws of the church's Book of Discipline.

In a closely watched, first-of-its kind municipal election, voters in New Mexico's largest city have soundly defeated a ban on late-term abortions. Meanwhile, a third of Texas' abortion clinics will stay closed after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to intervene in an ongoing legal dispute over a tough new law.