US Top Stories from Associated Press (AP)

WASHINGTON (AP) , Secretary of State John Kerry headed to the Middle East on Saturday, his third trip to the region in two weeks, in a fresh bid to unlock long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. Istanbul was the first leg of a six-nation trip that will see him travel on to Europe and Asia.

ALMATY, Kazakhstan , The EU's foreign policy chief says that nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers have failed to reach an agreement. Catherine Ashton said Saturday that the talks revealed that "the two sides remain far apart on substance." "What matters in the end is substance, and ... we are still a considerable distance apart," Ashton said at the end of the two day talks.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. (AP) , The burgeoning basketball scandal has cost Rutgers more than a popular, young athletic director, an interim general counsel, two coaches and a lot of embarrassment. The state university of New Jersey is in danger of losing some of its biggest donors in tough economic times.

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) , The police detective killed while interrogating a murder suspect at department headquarters in Mississippi's capital city was shot four times before the suspect shot himself in the head, authorities said Friday

WADSWORTH, Ill. (AP) , A school bus carrying children to their elementary school Friday morning crashed into a Jeep, spun around and then hit another vehicle before flipping onto its side, killing one adult and sending dozens of children to hospitals, authorities said.

NEW YORK (AP) , Hillary Rodham Clinton, in a rousing speech Friday about improving the future of women across the globe, gave no hint of plans for her own future. But that didn't mean everyone in the audience wasn't thinking about it.

Boeing put its 787 battery fix through a "final" flight test on Friday and will soon submit the data to regulators, who the aircraft maker hopes will sign off on the new battery system and allow the 787 back in the air. The 787 Dreamliner has been grounded since mid-January because of smoldering batteries that, in one case, caused a serious fire on the tarmac in Boston.

WASHINGTON (AP) , Seeking an elusive middle ground, President Barack Obama is proposing a 2014 budget that embraces tax increases abhorred by Republicans as well as reductions, loathed by liberals, in the growth of Social Security and other benefit programs.

HONOLULU (AP) , An off-duty California police officer who came to the rescue of a security agent being assaulted at the Honolulu airport was praised by federal authorities as video of the incident was released. Corporal Justin Rogers of the Pinole Police Department was on vacation and had just taken off his shoes to go through security on March 30 when he spotted the assault.

The Defense Department came under fire Thursday for a U.S. Army Reserve presentation that classified Catholics and Evangelical Protestants as "extremist" religious groups alongside al Qaeda and the Ku Klux Klan. The presentation detailed a number of extremist threats within the U.S. military, including white supremacist groups, street gangs, and religious sects.

MIAMI (AP) , An Ohio family spent a rainy, anxious night in the vast Florida Everglades when their airboat became stuck in vegetation so thick rescuers could not see them from the ground. Fortunately, the searchers could hear them.

MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) , With its new "Home" on Android gadgets, Facebook aims make its social network the hub of people's mobile experiences. The question, now, is whether people want all their Facebook content greeting them every time they look at their phones.

NEW YORK (AP) , More than half a million U.S. children are now believed to have lead poisoning, roughly twice the previous high estimate, health officials reported Thursday. The increase is the result of the government last year lowering the threshold for lead poisoning, so now more children are considered at risk.

HOUSTON (AP) , A possible agreement that could reduce the prison sentence of former Enron Corp. CEO Jeffrey Skilling for his role in the collapse of the once mighty energy giant is being discussed, according to the U.S. Justice Department. The possibility of a sentencing agreement in the case was made public this week in a notice to victims of Enron's collapse.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) , A man has been charged with murder in the shooting death of a civilian employee at Fort Knox, according to court filings. A Thursday federal filing by the FBI said Marquinta E. Jacobs fired a .45-caliber handgun at the victim, "striking him several times." Jacobs is charged with murder, according to the criminal complaint.