OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - The Oklahoma Department of Human Services has announced final approval of its so-called ``Pinnacle Plan'' to improve the care of children in state custody.

DHS announced Wednesday that child welfare experts who've been monitoring the plan have given their approval.

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - Animal lovers from across Oklahoma are visiting with their legislators and urging them to oppose a measure that would pave the way for a horse slaughtering facility in Oklahoma.

Officials with several animal rights groups sponsored Humane Lobby Day on Thursday and briefed about 50 participants on how to lobby their elected officials.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) - Tribal courts will have the authority to prosecute non-Indians in domestic violence cases under a bill signed into law Thursday by President Barack Obama.

The measure is seen as a huge step forward by many who live on reservations and decry the high rates of domestic violence with no prosecution there. But some say it could take years to make a difference.

Indian women suffer incidents of domestic violence at rates more than double the national averages.

Caught between the gritty political realities of needing cash and being linked to a political leader who has repeatedly denounced money's influence in Washington while raising record sums, former campaign aides to President Obama appeared to side with the money.

That had opened officials now heading Organizing for Action — which was formed from the Obama for America campaign committee to promote the president's second-term agenda — to charges of hypocrisy.

When the stage lights go up at Chicago's Goodman Theatre on Monday evening, more than 20 high school students will each have a moment to step into the spotlight and perform a monologue from one of the plays written by the late August Wilson. Chicago's contest is one of several regional finals that strives to introduce students to the Pulitzer Prize winner's work. It's also a lead-up to the national August Wilson Monologue Competition that will be held on Broadway later this spring.

If you've put an ear to some of the most talked-about jazz bands of the last few years, you've likely heard saxophonist Walter Smith III.

Behind most politicians is a speechwriter, typing rapidly somewhere in a small office and trying to channel the boss's voice.

The man who has held perhaps the most prominent speechwriting job of the new millennium is Jon Favreau, a 31-year-old from Massachusetts who was President Obama's chief speechwriter until this month. He started writing for Obama when the president was just a senator in 2005.

He tells Audie Cornish, host of All Things Considered, that writing for the president means walking a line between two worlds.

In Venezuela, thousands of mourners are paying their last respects to their larger-than-life leader, Hugo Chavez. The man who ruled Venezuela for 14 years died Tuesday, and his body is now lying in state in Caracas, the capital, as presidents and dignitaries fly in for the funeral Friday.

The Education Department has launched an investigation into discipline rates in Seattle public schools.

Students of color have long been punished in far higher numbers than white students in Seattle, but now the department's Office for Civil Rights is looking at whether black students are disciplined more frequently and more harshly than white students for the same behavior.