MEXICO CITY—Authorities in the western Mexican state of Michoacan are investigating the disappearance of a journalist who wrote about organized crime.   Full Story

SCRANTON, Pa.—Two former Pennsylvania judges accused of taking kickbacks to supply private detention facilities with juveniles have been granted partial immunity from civil liability.   Full Story

SAN FRANCISCO—The decision to move Johannes Mehserle's trial to Los Angeles County is a setback for the former transit officer charged with killing an unarmed man on New Year's Day.   Full Story

(AP Photo/Pat Wellenbach)

BRUNSWICK, Maine—The rumble of Navy patrol aircraft flying overhead will soon be a thing of the past as the remaining P-3 Orions depart from Brunswick Naval Air Station.   Full Story

COLUMBUS, Ohio—An attorney for a condemned killer says Ohio's new lethal-injection plan is so untested it would amount to human experimentation if used for the first time next month.   Full Story

MUMBAI, India—The walls that the rockets blew out have not been repaired, and the plaster is a dense scattershot of bullet holes.   Full Story

SAN ANTONIO—An attorney for the Army psychiatrist charged in the mass shooting at Fort Hood says his client will have his first court hearing in his hospital room on Saturday.   Full Story

LONDON—A British couple being held hostage by Somali pirates said in an interview broadcast Friday that they fear they will be killed or handed to a terrorist group if a ransom is not paid soon.   Full Story

PHILADELPHIA—A Pennsylvania university's requirement that overweight undergraduates take a fitness course to receive their degrees has raised the hackles of students and the eyebrows of health and legal experts.   Full Story

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.—An independent panel says the United States can extend the life of aging nuclear weapons for decades with existing programs, a finding that activists contend means there's no need for the nation to design replacements for the nuclear arsenal.   Full Story