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He thought of himself as a priest first and foremost. But Greeley was famous for his sometimes steamy novels that also cast a critical eye at his church. Greeley was 85 and had been in poor health since suffering a brain injury in 2008.

Manssor Arbabsiar, a naturalized U.S. citizen who has lived in Texas for three decades, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for conspiring to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States. Last October, Arbabsiar pleaded guilty to plotting to kill the ambassador.

The 12-year U.S. military effort in Afghanistan has sought to drive out extremists and help Afghans rebuild their country. As the American forces prepare to withdraw, the focus is on practical security measures and those ambitious nation-building goals seem to be fading away.

The clock is ticking for those who hope Illinois becomes the 13th state to legalize same-sex marriage. After passing the Illinois Senate in February, a bill to legalize gay marriage has stalled in the House. Backers are trying to get it through before the Legislature adjourns Friday night.

Would you like to know the life history of that steak before you eat it? Technology exists to give you that information, at least in Michigan, where the state government requires all cattle to carry an electronic tag for tracking purposes.

As humans have cut into Brazil's forests, the toucan population has taken a dive. The trees, in turn, have changed, too: Without large-billed birds to eat fruit with big seeds, only trees with small seeds thrive. Eventually, one scientist says, "the impacts on the forest could be quite dramatic."

This week, the European Union gave some of its member nations more time to meet deficit-reduction targets — in other words, to ease back on austerity. The programs have crushed growth and sent European unemployment to a record high 12 percent.

The letters were sent to President Obama, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and a gun control group the mayor supports. Investigators say they were postmarked in Louisiana, near where the man being questioned lives.

When a single-engine plane apparently ran out of fuel, it nose-dived into an apartment building near Washington, D.C. Amazingly, both the pilot and passenger walked away. And, no one in the apartment was seriously injured. The plane just missed the bedrooms where people were sleeping.

Arvind Mahankali, a 13-year-old from Bayside, N.Y., won the Scripps National Spelling Bee on Thursday after correctly spelling "knaidel." It's a yiddish term of German origin meaning "dumpling." Mahankali had stumbled on German words two years in a row. This year, he said, "the German curse has turned into in a German blessing."