As predicted by those on both sides of the contentious abortion battle, states in the first half of this year have enacted a record 162 new laws or changes to existing laws that affect reproductive health, according to a new report from the Guttmacher Institute.

One day after the perjury trial of Roger Clemens began, it jerked to a halt Thursday, as the judge in the case declared a mistrial. Clemens' attorney, Rusty Hardin, had asked U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton to declare a mistrial on the grounds that prosecutors had put evidence before the jury that he had expressly forbade them from introducing.

The AP describes the issue:

A mistrial was declared Thursday in the perjury trial of baseball star Roger Clemens after the judge said prosecutors had ignored warnings not to show jurors inadmissible evidence.

Clemens' defense will now go to work on a motion to avoid a retrial.

General Pervez Musharraf, the former president of Pakistan, says the U.S.' suspension of $800 million of military aid to Pakistan hurts his country and its fight against terrorism. Host Michel Martin speaks with Musharraf about U.S.-Pakistani relations since May when U.S. forces captured and killed Osama Bin Laden.

Robert George, whose body has been in the University of Kentucky Chandler Hospital morgue for more than three months, finally will be laid to rest, possibly on Thursday, in Burnside Cemetery in Pulaski County. It's not likely that any of George's relatives, including his children — four sons and a daughter — will be there when his coffin is lowered into the ground, George's son, Robbie George of Texas, said Wednesday. "He's done a lot of very bad things, and the family is not so forgiving," the son said.

Nineteen defendants from Adair, Butler and Russell counties have been sentenced in United States District Court for their role in a crack cocaine and controlled substance distribution ring operating in and around Adair County, according to David J. Hale, United States Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky. According to evidence presented in court, the drug trafficking organization operated between July 2007 and May 2009 and was responsible for the distribution of at least 300 kilograms of crack cocaine and prescription pills with an estimated street value in excess of $10 million, in and around Adair County.

As Thursday brought the prospect of another scheduled afternoon White House meeting between the antagonists in the debt-ceiling battle, it was only natural to wonder how that session would go considering what happened the day before.

On Wednesday, as been widely reported, that meeting got somewhat testy, with President Obama telling congressional Republicans, specifically House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia, not to test his resolve.

When Damon Dunson and Melanie Stamper of Berea woke up one morning last week, they said they couldn't believe that someone had used spray paint and markers to write racial slurs on their vehicles. "I was angry, but at the same time I knew whoever did it was ignorant," said Dunson, who is black. "They spelled the n-word three different ways," said Stamper, his girlfriend, who is white. The message left on Stamper's Jeep, she said, told her to get out of the neighborhood.

The music streaming service Spotify, which was launched in Sweden in 2008 and has been eagerly awaited by tech-savvy music fans in the United States for the past year, has begun offering its U.S. version.

The service has won over users in Europe — and generated anticipation here — by offering a simple service: a huge catalog of music that can be streamed, combined into playlists and accessed from any computer with an Internet connection, all free.

With Atlantis paying a visit to the International Space Station on the last mission of the space shuttle program, NASA thought it was a good time for a cookout... in space. The 10 astronauts on the two linked spacecraft will enjoy a special "all-American meal" today.

The meal — or, thermostabilized space food items, in NASAspeak — includes grilled chicken and barbecued beef brisket, along with Southwestern corn, baked beans and (unconfirmed) a Hostess apple pie.