USA

Consumer prices rose 0.8 percent in July, and 5.6 percent on a year-over-year basis, the biggest increase in the consumer price index since January 1991, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The index is the most commonly used inflation index.

In a case centered on the use of Tasers in law enforcement, a Louisiana grand jury Wednesday indicted Scott Nugent, a former police officer, on a manslaughter charge. Nugent is accused of “unnecessarily” using a Taser on Baron Pikes during an arrest on a drug possession warrant in January. Pikes died after being shocked nine times with a 50,000-volt Taser.

Chrysler will invest $1.8 billion to retool a Detroit assembly plant that will keep more than 400 jobs in Michigan, the automaker said Wednesday. The plant is expected to produce vehicles early in 2010.

An apparently distraught gunman shot and killed the chairman of the Arkansas Democratic Party at party headquarters in Little Rock Wednesday shortly after introducing himself to Bill Gwatney. Suspect Timothy Dale Johnson approached Gwatney not long after being fired from his job at a Target store. Police shot and killed Johnson after a chase that followed Gwatney's murder.

American Airlines signed a revenue-sharing deal Thursday with British Airways PLC and Spain’s Iberia SA that is the closest alliance the trio can form under strict US airline ownership laws. Regulators still must approve the pact, which also involves sharing seat capacity on transatlantic flights.

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick may travel to the Democratic National Convention without wearing an electronic tether as ordered as part of his bond in a perjury case, a Wayne County judge ruled Thursday.

The National Archives released more than 35,000 top-secret personnel files Wednesday about a vast World War II-era spy network managed by the Office of Strategic Services, the first centralized US intelligence operation. Records show famous chef Julia Child applied to the agency.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is branching out, the Cleveland-based attraction announced Wednesday in New York, where it will open the first of several planned outposts designed to provide new revenue streams. The New York annex will be located in Manhattan's Soho district. Below, pop musician Billy Joel (l.) and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg listen during a press conference.