WASHINGTON (AP) — Barack Obama once contemplated what it would be like to take his two daughters to the National Mall to see a monument to Martin Luther King Jr.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The nation's only professional group for active-duty gay military personnel is holding its first conference in Las Vegas this weekend, an event only made possible by the recent lifting of the "don't ask, don't tell" policy that prohibited gay and lesbian troops from serving openly in the armed forces.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's campaign raised more than $70 million combined for his re-election and the Democratic party during the summer, an amount that gives him a clear advantage over his Republican rivals but is less than his initial fundraising effort.

ATLANTA (AP) — If there's a policy star in the Republican presidential primary it may be Herman Cain's 9-9-9 tax overhaul plan.

DETROIT (AP) — A Nigerian man pleaded guilty Wednesday to trying to bring down a jetliner with a bomb in his underwear, defiantly telling a federal judge that he acted in retaliation for the killing of Muslims worldwide and referring to the failed explosive as a "blessed weapon."

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court seemed ready Wednesday to endorse a jail policy that forces even people arrested on minor charges to undress and shower while being watched by guards.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia prosecutors will have to pursue a second death-penalty sentence for convicted police killer Mumia Abu-Jamal or accept a life sentence after the U.S. Supreme Court declined Tuesday to review the racially charged case.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is pressing for passage of his full $447 billion jobs package in the face of certain congressional defeat while embracing more modest administrative remedies to the nation's sluggish economy and unwaveringly high unemployment.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Candy shaped like marijuana that's showing up on store shelves around the country won't get kids high, but aghast city leaders and anti-drug activists say the product and grocers carrying it represent a new low.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Employers added 103,000 jobs in September, a modest burst of hiring after a sluggish summer. Still, job growth remains too weak to lower the unemployment rate, which stayed at 9.1 percent for the third straight month.