Civil rights leader Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth has died, according to reports. He was 89. In the 1950s, Shuttleworth's activism resulted in beatings and attempts on his life in Birmingham, where he established the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights in 1956.

The Birmingham News has put up a slideshow of the civil rights leader, along with some highlights of his life-long struggle against racism and discrimination:

Two weeks after the assassination of a former president, Afghan intelligence officials say they have disrupted a plot to kill the country's current leader.

Afghan officials said Wednesday that they have foiled a plot to assassinate President Hamid Karzai and arrested six people, including one of Karzai's bodyguards.

The bodyguard was recruited by a network of al-Qaida sympathizers at Kabul Medical University that is linked to the Pakistan-based Haqqani militant network, according to Afghan intelligence officials.

Intelligence service spokesman Latifullah Mashal said three college students and a university professor were also among those arrested in Kabul.

Ahmad Al Shayea grew up in Saudi Arabia in a middle-class family and dropped out of high school to join a local gang. Abdullah Al-Gilani fell in love with a girl who eventually married someone else. Zeddy was an old colleague of Osama bin Laden's.

The National Cathedral, closed since sustaining extensive damage from the August earthquake that shook Washington, D.C., and the surrounding area, will reopen on Nov. 12, according to officials.

The cathedral is also trying to raise money to pay for repairs, estimated to run into the tens of millions of dollars. A statement on the landmark's website says organizers are seeking "at least $25 million" to cover its expenses through the end of 2012.

State lawmakers have joined an aircraft maintenance company in southwest Ohio to announce the addition of more than 250 jobs.

A spokesman for Ohio Gov. John Kasich said Tuesday that the additional maintenance jobs at Airbourne Maintenance and Engineering Services were helped by about $14.6 million in state money. The funds were awarded to the Clinton County Port Authority, which has invested roughly $15.7 million in bringing the new employees to Airbourne Maintenance and keeping almost 400 workers from leaving Ohio.

The Ohio Statehouse is ready for electric vehicles to plug in and charge up.

Six new charging stations are being unveiled today in the garage beneath the Statehouse. Officials believe Ohio's is the first state Capitol building in the nation to offer an electric car charging facility to members of the public, who will pay 50 cents an hour to use it.

The nearly $36,000 project is funded through corporate contributions and a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy and the nonprofit group Clean Fuels Ohio.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry's poll number may be sagging, but his campaign is flush with cash. Perry's campaign says it raised more than $17 million in the third quarter.

Perry entered the Republican presidential primary race in mid August with just 49 days left before the quarterly filing deadline. But in that short time he's shot to the top of the money race.

His $17 million haul likely outdoes front-runner Mitt Romney's efforts over the summer. Meanwhile, Perry's campaign says it's kept spending so low that it has $15 million cash on hand.

 The Ohio Senate's Republican leader says he's asking a group of state lawmakers to review legal questions related to a bill that would ban abortions at the first detectable fetal heartbeat.

President Tom Niehaus said Tuesday he wants the group to vet any legal issues and report back to him in November.

The measure called the "heartbeat bill" passed the Ohio House in June, but has stalled in the Senate.

Ohio Right to Life has taken issue with the bill, fearing a legal challenge could jeopardize other abortion limits in Ohio and expand access to legal abortions.

I lied. My smartphone isn't a microscope — yet. But there are some smart physicists who want to make that transformation possible very soon, if not for you and me at first, then for doctors who don't have easy access to laboratories.