U.S.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is the primary enforcer of the nation's gun laws, but advocates and former ATF officials say agents face legal restrictions that limit their effectiveness. In addition, the agency has been without a permanent director for years.

Many Coptic Christians will celebrate Christmas on Monday outside their native Egypt. Their future there looks uncertain, and many are resettling in the U.S. Churches around New York, New Jersey and Southern California, the centers of Coptic life here, have seen memberships swell.

On Jan. 1, 1953, Mildred Norman gave up her name — and possessions — to become Peace Pilgrim. She walked across the U.S. and Canada for 28 years, subsisting on handouts from strangers to spread her message of peace.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has approved regulations requiring clinics where abortions are performed to meet the same building codes as new hospitals. Abortion-rights groups say the regulations are unnecessary, but abortion-rights opponents say they're the only way to ensure that clinics are safe.

The news that disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong might be willing to confess to the doping charges he spent years denying has reopened interest in his case — and opens the question of whether his lifetime ban from competitive sports could be eased in exchange for Armstrong's cooperation.

President Hamid Karzai is in Washington this week for meetings with President Obama and other officials. One of the key issues to be discussed is the number of American troops to remain in Afghanistan after 2014, when the bulk of U.S. and NATO forces leave.

Vaccination is still the best way to avoid getting sick, but it's not 100 percent protective. Some people may get infected with a strain of flu that isn't covered by this year's vaccine. For others, the shots just don't work.

Moments after a deadly attack that turned an Aurora, Colo., movie theater into a scene of panic and tragedy, the police officer who found suspect James Holmes at first took him for a fellow police officer, due to the body armor Holmes was wearing.

President Obama has nominated his counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, to lead the CIA. Brennan's work with the agency under George W. Bush has been controversial, and he's also drawn criticism for his lead role in the Obama administration's use of unmanned drones.

Photographer Eugene Richards explains why, 40 years after his first visit to the Arkansas Delta, he decided to go back.