US Top Stories from Associated Press (AP)

Evidence about the Boston Marathon bombing suspects' ties to Islamism and Chechen radicals deepened Thursday as multiple news outlets reported that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev claimed the attacks were made on behalf of Islam in retaliation for U.S. foreign policy.

China is challenging a key American policy toward Japan: the unambiguous U.S. support of Japan's sovereign rights to the Ryukyu island chain, including the key strategic island of Okinawa. The United...

WASHINGTON (AP) , President Barack Obama picked a senior White House budget official to become the acting head of the Internal Revenue Service on Thursday, the same day another top official announced plans to leave the agency amid the controversy over agents targeting tea party groups.

ANALYSIS/OPINION Rising persecution of minority religious communities in Pakistan, Iran and Syria , and other nations , is a serious threat to stability in those countries and their neighbors, a panel of specialists said at a Hudson Institute forum this week, showing how religious tensions can have larger political ramifications in hot spots around the world.

DENVER , The fate of one Colorado mass murderer has become entwined with that of another as Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper struggles with whether to save the life of a notorious death row inmate. Mr. Hickenlooper is considering a petition to grant clemency for 38-year-old Nathan Dunlap, convicted by a jury in 1996 of killing four employees at a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in Aurora.

In the wake of the murder convictions of Philadelphia abortionist Kermit B. Gosnell, Texas state officials are investigating a Houston abortion provider who is accused by former employees of killing born-alive infants, performing illegal late-term abortions and violating other state laws.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) , Two brothers with a history of drug arrests and suspected ties to a neighborhood gang each face 20 counts of attempted second-degree murder in a shooting spree that brought a sudden bloody end to a Mother's Day parade in a New Orleans neighborhood.

DETROIT (AP) , A Saudi man was arrested at Detroit Metropolitan Airport after federal agents said he lied about why he was traveling with a pressure cooker, but his nephew said Monday that it was all a misunderstanding about a device he simply wanted for cooking. Two pressure cookers were used in last month's Boston Marathon bombings.

LOS ANGELES (AP) , An associate choreographer who worked on Michael Jackson's planned comeback concerts testified Monday that she didn't see any signs that the pop superstar was ill or might die in the final days of his life.

CLEVELAND (AP) , A man charged with holding three women captive for about a decade had been accused of threatening his neighbors, attacking his common-law wife and committing violations during his career as a school bus driver, according to records released Monday.

The Justice Department secretly obtained two months of telephone records of reporters and editors for The Associated Press in what the news cooperative's top executive called a "massive and unprecedented intrusion" into how news organizations gather the news.

NEW YORK (AP) , Some of the world's largest retailers have agreed to a first-of-its-kind pact to improve safety at some of Bangladesh's garment factories following a building collapse that killed more than 1,100 workers in the country last month.

LAS VEGAS (AP) , A weary-looking O.J. Simpson weighed down by shackles and more than four years in prison shuffled into a Las Vegas courtroom on Monday hoping to eventually walk out a free man. ...

DETROIT (AP) , The first report by Detroit's emergency manager declares that the city is broke and at risk of running completely out of money , a financial meltdown that could mean employees don't get paid, retirees lose their pensions and residents endure even deeper cuts in municipal services.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) , An abortion doctor was convicted Monday of first-degree murder and could face execution in the deaths of three babies who were delivered alive and then killed with scissors at his grimy, "house of horrors" clinic.