The Obama administration wants states to focus more of their attention on the lowest performing schools, where large numbers of students are failing state tests year after year.

So the Department of Education is inviting all states to apply for waivers from the No Child Left Behind law.

The waivers could win relief for schools where a small number of students are falling short of federal requirements.

But advocates for minority and special education students worry their students will be ignored.

The 'Failing School' Stigma

Worldwide tuberculosis cases are declining annually for the first time, according to a report just out from the World Health Organization. Deaths from the disease have also sunk to the lowest level in a decade.

The AP, along with several other news sources including Al Arabiya and Haaretz, are reporting that Israel and Hamas have reached a prisoner-swap deal that will free Israeli Sgt. Gilad Schalit and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

Schalit, if you remember, was captured by Palestinian militants in 2006 and his father, Noam, has led a popular effort to free him.

Back in 2009 when he campaigned to be New Jersey's chief executive, then former U.S. prosecutor Chris Christie got help from Mitt Romney who visited the Garden State to endorse his fellow Republican in that state's GOP primary.

So it wasn't particularly surprising that on Tuesday, now-Gov. Christie would return the favor by endorsing Romney's bid to be the Republican Party presidential nominee in an afternoon news conference.

A report (pdf) from the Senate's Governmental Affair's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations found that a 2004 tax break that was given to corporations repatriating profits made in foreign countries "did not produce any of the promised benefits of new jobs or increased research expenditures to spur economic growth." In fact, the report found that the corporations receiving the break cut 20,000 net jobs and cost the U.S.

We're following this breaking news as it comes in. Scroll down for updates.

An Iranian-directed plan to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. and possibly attack the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington has been disrupted, Justice Department officials announced this afternoon.

Saying that the alleged "deadly plot ... [was] directed by factions of the Iranian government" and involved an attempt to hire killers from a Mexican drug cartel, Attorney General Eric Holder also said Iran will be held to account.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian suspect in a failed Christmas Day 2009 attack of a U.S.-bound airliner, prayed and perfumed himself in the plane's restroom moments before trying to detonate a bomb sewn into his underwear, a federal prosecutor said Tuesday.

"He was engaging in rituals. He was preparing to die and enter heaven," Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel told a court in Detroit as Abdulmutallab's trial opened. "He purified himself. He washed. He brushed his teeth. He put on perfume. He was praying and perfuming himself to get ready to die."

The Occupy Wall Street movement, as we noted last week, has latched on to the idea that its supporters are the "99 percent" of Americans who aren't superrich and have been falling behind in recent years.

Northrop Grumman announced, yesterday, that the X-47B drone it is developing for the U.S. Navy had flown in cruise mode — with its landing gear retracted — for the first time during a test flight from Edwards Air Force Base.

The aerospace company called it a "major milestone," but what caught our attention were simply the pictures of this tail-less plane that looks like hybrid UFO and a B-2 bomber:

Dozens of states are considering laws that would require drug testing for government benefit recipients. Those in favor say it would help ensure that tax dollars are used properly, but opponents say it would perpetuate stereotypes about the poor and withhold help from those who need it.