US Top Stories from Associated Press (AP)

Federal wildlife officials and police in Tupelo, Miss., are investigating the shooting of a circus elephant, and a $26,250 reward has been offered for information. The elephant, a 39-year-old Asian female named Carol, was outside the Bancorp South Arena in Tupelo with the Ringling Bros.

AMARILLO, Texas (AP) , A Texas grand jury has indicted eccentric millionaire artist Stanley Marsh 3 on charges that he sexually assaulted six teenagers, according to documents released Thursday. Marsh was indicted Wednesday on four counts of sexual assault of a child, eight counts of sexual performance by a child, and two counts of indecency with a child.

Have a conceal-carry license in Missouri? Chances are, the feds now know who you are. At least 185,000 people were affected after the full list of conceal-carry owners was turned over the federal authorities , twice.

WASHINGTON (AP) , President Barack Obama's budget plan would increase taxes by $1 trillion over the next decade, including a new tax on cigarettes and familiar proposals to increases taxes on the wealthy and some corporations.

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) , Joshua and Sharyn Hakken seemed to have a charmed life, doting on their two young boys, buying a comfortable home and building successful careers as engineers. It all derailed last year when police in Louisiana found the family inside a hotel room with drugs, weapons and promises from the parents to take "a journey to the Armageddon."

WASHINGTON (AP) , The Obama administration is expected to give Syrian rebels broader nonlethal military assistance, including body armor and night-vision goggles, while stopping short of providing weapons to forces fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad.

LOS ANGELES (AP) , Stephen Hawking, who spent his career decoding the universe and even experienced weightlessness, is urging the continuation of space exploration , for humanity's sake. The 71-year-old Hawking said he did not think humans would survive another 1,000 years "without escaping beyond our fragile planet."

President Obama is backtracking from his campaign promise that "I don't think now is the time" for another round of military base closures across the country. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Wednesday...

CYPRESS, Texas (AP) , A man accused of stabbing more than a dozen people at a suburban Houston community college randomly selected his victims and told investigators he had been fantasizing about conducting such an attack since he was 8 years old, authorities said Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) , Two pivotal senators announced a bipartisan deal Wednesday on expanding background checks to more gun buyers, an agreement that could build support for President Barack Obama's drive to curb firearms violence.

President Obama's $3.77 trillion budget plan is hardly serious, or feasible, said Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson. Not only is it late, he said, on Fox News. But it's filled with spending , and noticeably lacking in cuts. "Obviously, releasing a budget two months late is leading from behind," the Republican said, Fox News reported. "I mean, it is not a serious budget. It never provides balance.

In the chaotic aftermath of a Houston campus mass stabbing Tuesday, a Lone Star Community College student gave a brutally honest interview with Fox News, lamenting the fact that students can't carry firearms to protect themselves and others.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden tried to shame senators Tuesday into supporting gun-control measures, saying opponents don't understand the pain of parents who lost children in the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre.

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) , The Air Force began grounding about one-third of its active-duty combat aircraft on Tuesday because of automatic federal spending cuts, including squadrons of fighters, bombers and airborne warning and control craft.

Due to state law, Rhode Island University police responded to a report of a campus gunman last week while armed with only pepper spray and batons. State police officers , who are allowed to be armed on campus , were still arriving roughly twenty minutes after the first call for help went out, reports add. No shooter was found and no one was injured.