Ken Stanford

World stock markets shot higher Thursday as investors waded into riskier assets, emboldened by European leaders agreeing on a plan to reduce Greece's massive debts.

Sources say a retired deputy in the Hall County Sheriff's Office is in line to become the department's new chief deputy.

State officials will formally open a new facility in north Georgia to house abandoned and abused horses.

The Georgia Department of Labor says the preliminary unadjusted unemployment rate in metro Gainesville was unchanged at 8.6 percent from August to September. The jobless rate in metro Gainesville in September a year ago was 8.8 percent.

As more states consider stronger immigration laws, political, business and religious leaders from throughout the West examined the economic impact of enforcement measures and guest-worker programs during a one-day summit Wednesday in Salt Lake City.

Republicans on Congress' deficit-reduction supercommittee outlined a plan Wednesday that includes spending cuts but none of the increases in tax revenue sought by Democrats, completing an initial exchange of offers that left the two sides far apart despite weeks of secret talks.

The Department of Homeland Security is not helping state and local officials in Alabama implement the state's new immigration law that allows local authorities to detain people they suspect are in the country illegally.

The Supreme Court could decide as early as Nov. 10 whether to hear a challenge to President Barack Obama's health care overhaul this term.

The man accused of stabbing an Oak Valley Road woman and leaving her in a ditch on the side of the road is in police custody.

Muslims who change their names to sound more traditionally American, as immigrants have done for generations, or who adopt Arabic names as a sign of their faith are often investigated and catalogued in secret New York Police Department intelligence files, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.