(CHICAGO, AP) — Illinois and the federal government have approved an environmental impact statement for the high-speed rail line under construction between Chicago and St. Louis. The review is an… Read more »

By JUAN CARLOS LLORCA and TERRY WALLACE (MIDLAND, Texas, AP) — Four veterans were killed and 16 other people were injured when a train slammed into a parade float carrying… Read more »

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN (NEW ORLEANS, AP) — Oil giant BP has agreed to pay the largest criminal penalty in U.S. history, totaling billions of dollars, for the 2010 oil spill… Read more »

(JEFFERSON CITY, Mo., AP) — U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt will remain in his leadership post in the Senate Republican caucus. Blunt, of Missouri, is the vice chairman of the chamber’s… Read more »

(JEFFERSON CITY, Mo., AP) — Missouri’s two U.S. senators are taking opposite positions on whether to raise taxes on the wealthy as part of a solution to the so-called fiscal… Read more »

(TOPEKA, Kan., AP) — A new report says elementary schools in Kansas and surrounding states have reduced, or even eliminated, science education in recent years to emphasize reading and math…. Read more »

By JEFF BARNARD and NICHOLAS RICCARDI The fate of a tax credit that advocates say is needed to maintain tens of thousands of wind energy jobs will be decided during… Read more »

(NEW YORK, AP) — A 4-year-old girl from Kansas City has been delivering toys to New York City children affected by Superstorm Sandy. Katherine Schell tells WCBS-TV (http://cbsloc.al/Zyb1r8 ) that… Read more »

By CHRISTINA REXRODE, DAVID BAUDER and VERENA DOBNIK (NEW YORK, AP) — Garbage trucks, hulking military vehicles and mud-caked cars move slowly through a Staten Island waterfront neighborhood still reeling… Read more »

By ADAM GOLDMAN, ANNE FLAHERTY and KIMBERLY DOZIER (WASHINGTON, AP) — Retired Gen. David Petraeus began an affair with his biographer in 2011, two months after he became CIA director,… Read more »