In the Nation

BOSTON - A federal immigration judge has scheduled a new deportation hearing granted last year to President Obama's uncle in Massachusetts.

Onyango Obama is the half brother of the president's late father. He has lived in the United States since coming from Kenya as a teenager for school.

On Wednesday, his new hearing was set for Dec. 3.

Obama, 68, was ordered deported in 1992 after he failed to renew an application to stay. His status emerged after a 2011 drunken-driving arrest in Framingham. A judge continued that case for a year without a finding after Obama acknowledged that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him.

Meanwhile, President Obama, since his inauguration last week, has declared the overhaul of U.S. immigration policy one of his top goals. - AP

RALEIGH, N.C. - In a case prosecutors say highlights weaknesses in the nation's gun laws, a South Carolina man admitted Wednesday he sold dozens of powerful military-style rifles at gun shows and in a hotel parking lot without any paperwork or background checks.

Michael A. Beas of Greer, S.C., pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Charlotte to a single felony count of dealing firearms without a license.

Prosecutors say a Charlotte gun-store owner alerted federal officials in August after Beas legally purchased 13 semiautomatic AK-47 rifles over the Internet.

Beas, 33, faces a maximum sentence of up to five years in prison. As part of his plea agreement, Beas also agreed to surrender the 13 AK-47s and one .50-caliber sniper rifle. - AP

LOS ANGELES - The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles says it will soon reveal 30,000 pages of confidential personnel files without blacking out the names of church leaders who knew about sexual abuse by priests.

Archdiocese attorney Michael Hennigan said Wednesday that the church had given up on its plan to redact the names and that the files would be turned over to lawyers for abuse victims. The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times, along with victims, went to court to force the archdiocese to reveal the names.

The legal fight was triggered after the archdiocese agreed to a $660 million settlement with victims in 2007 that included revealing contents of the files. The archdiocese wanted to keep many names secret, citing privacy rights of priests and others. - AP

The Coast Guard is letting vessels pass - "methodically and slowly" - through a closed section of the Mississippi River at Vicksburg as it evaluates how traffic would affect efforts to remove and clean up oil from a leaking barge, a Guard spokesman said Wednesday. - AP