WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama's nomination of a trucking industry lobbyist to head the agency that regulates the industry drew fire Wednesday from senators and safety advocates.

Anne Ferro, the president and CEO of the Maryland Motor Truck Association for the past six years, was named to head the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, a troubled agency that has been widely criticized for allowing safety recommendations to languish for years without action.

DALLAS (AP) — The Innocence Project of Texas said Friday that scent identification lineups, in which trained dogs determine if a suspect's smell matches the smell of crime scene evidence, are based on faulty science and have led to a number of wrongful convictions.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Lady Dai was a Chinese nobleman's wife in her mid-50s when she died of a heart attack. She was overweight, had diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, liver disease, gallstones and her arteries were almost totally clogged.

NEW YORK (AP) — Self-portraits scribbled by Truman Capote, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and other famous writers, athletes and artists that were collected by a Manhattan bookseller are going on the auction block next week.

Burt Britton's hobby began in the mid-1960s with Norman Mailer while Britton was bartending at the legendary Village Vanguard. The author was the last customer late one night and was refusing to leave, according to the auction catalog's notes.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The phone calls came in the middle of the night. Three women, each receiving an eerie message from the man on the line:

He was in their house and watching them.

And according to caller ID, the calls were coming from their home phones.

The terrified women found out later that the caller was not in their homes, but playing a frightening prank on them.

It's called spoofing. Sometimes it's a practical joke, but law enforcement officials are becoming increasingly alarmed by more harmful uses.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday that the new missile defense system planned for Europe has the flexibility to adapt to changes in Iranian missile capabilities even if U.S. intelligence about Tehran's slower-than-expected pace turns out to be wrong.

DENVER (AP) — FBI agents were questioning the father of a man under investigation in a terrorism probe in New York and Denver, a spokeswoman for the defense team said Friday.

The FBI didn't say why it wanted to talk to Mohammed Zazi, but he is cooperating, said the spokeswoman, Wendy Aiello.

FBI spokeswoman Kathy Wright said she couldn't comment.

Fiddling with your iPhone behind the wheel can get you fined across much of the nation. But many states are more than happy to tweet you with up-to-the-minute directions on how to steer clear of a traffic jam.

It is a mixed signal that some safety experts and politicians say could be dangerous.

At least 22 states that ban texting while driving offer some type of service that allows motorists to get information about traffic tie-ups, road conditions or emergencies via Twitter.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Tens of thousands of protesters — many decked out in the green colors of the reform movement and chanting "Death to the dictator!" — rallied Friday in defiance of Iran's Islamic leadership, clashing with police and confronting state-run anti-Israel rallies.

In the first major opposition protests in two months, demonstrators marching shoulder-to-shoulder raised their hands in V-for-victory signs on main boulevards and squares throughout the capital.

BOSTON (AP) — The Justice Department on Friday asked a federal judge in Boston to dismiss a lawsuit that claims a federal law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman is unconstitutional because it denies gay couples access to federal benefits given to other married couples.

Sgt. Dave Reagan of the Spokane County sheriff's office says Phillip Arnold Paul remained at large Friday and officials believe he's headed to Sunnyside, the town where his parents live. Anyone spotting him should call 911 and not try to confront him.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — As police charged a Yale animal lab technician with murdering a graduate student who worked in his building, a portrait began to emerge Thursday of an unpleasant stickler for the rules who often clashed with researchers and considered the mice cages his personal fiefdom.

Police charged 24-year-old Raymond Clark III with murder, arresting him at a motel a day after taking hair, fingernail and saliva samples to compare with evidence from the grisly crime scene at Yale's medical school.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Thursday praised a U.S. soldier who three times left cover for an attempted rescue while Taliban bullets and grenades rained around him, ultimately losing his own life while trying to save his comrade on an Afghan battlefield.

A somber Obama, standing just feet from Sgt. 1st Class Jared Monti's parents, told a White House audience that the 30-year-old soldier's sacrifice should give Americans pause when they throw around words such as duty, honor, sacrifice and heroism.

MARYVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Hotaru Ferschke just wants to raise her 8-month-old son in his grandparents' Tennessee home, surrounded by photos and memories of the father he'll never meet: a Marine who died in combat a month after marrying her from thousands of miles away.

Sgt. Michael Ferschke was killed in Iraq in 2008, leaving his widow and infant son, both Japanese citizens, in immigration limbo: A 1950s legal standard meant to curb marriage fraud means U.S. authorities do not recognize the marriage, even though the military does.

AURORA, Colo. (AP) - Federal agents on Wednesday searched the suburban Denver home of a man identified by law enforcement as having a possible al-Qaida link.

FBI agents entered the home of Najibullah Zazi with a search warrant, said Kathleen Wright, an FBI special agent in Denver. She did not elaborate.

Zazi denies that he's a central figure in a terrorism investigation that fed fears of a possible bomb plot and led to several police raids in New York City on Monday.

WASHINGTON (AP) - An advocacy group under fire after employees were caught on camera appearing to advise a couple posing as a prostitute and pimp to lie about the woman's profession to get housing help said Wednesday it is ordering an independent investigation.

The group, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, known as ACORN, said it is refusing new admissions into its service programs.

CHICAGO (AP) — The kid pleading with Shoeless Joe Jackson to "say it ain't so" is one of the most fabled stories in baseball, right up there with Lou Gehrig telling a packed Yankee Stadium he was "the luckiest man on the face of the earth."

Two Chicago attorneys have combed through the papers of the late Eliot Asinof, whose book "Eight Men Out" portrayed Jackson as a cheat who helped the White Sox throw the 1919 World Series. Their conclusion?

It ain't so.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — President Barack Obama assailed critics of his health care initiative Saturday, seeking to grab the megaphone from his opponents and boost momentum in his drive for congressional passage of his chief domestic priority.

"I will not accept the status quo. Not this time. Not now," the president told an estimated 15,000 people during a rally that had every feel of a campaign event, right down to chants of "Fired up, ready to go!" and "Yes, we can!"

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — Investigators searching for a Yale University graduate student who disappeared days before her wedding were reviewing security-camera footage, checking building blueprints and examining her computer, a Yale spokesman said Friday.

More than 100 local, state and federal law enforcement personnel were involved in the investigation into Tuesday's disappearance of Annie Le, said Yale spokesman Tom Conroy.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Lance Cpl. Patrick Malone was relaxing on his bunk at an Iraqi combat base when a direct superior interrupted his late-night movie.

It was time for a game Marines sometimes play to build confidence in colleagues: Point a gun at a comrade and ask, "Do you trust me?"