Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney sought to distance himself Thursday from a GOP-leaning independent group's plan for a $10 million TV ad campaign renewing attention to President Barack Obama's ties to his controversial former pastor. Obama's campaign accused Romney of failing to show "moral leadership in standing up to the very extreme wing of his own party."

The Kennedy family, so practiced at public mourning, is grieving again after the estranged wife of Robert Kennedy Jr. was found dead at her home in suburban New York.