LITTLE ROCK — Armina Babayan, a 31-year-old passenger aboard a flight from Siberia to Armenia, gave birth on the plane to a healthy baby girl whom she named Asmik, after Asmik Gevondyan, one of the flight attendants who helped with the delivery.

Jay Carney, President Barack Obama’s press secretary, said the White House has ruled out a strategy to mint a coin worth $1 trillion to pay the government’s bills and avoid a battle with Congress over the debt ceiling.

President Barack Obama, 51, who had his most recent physical exam in October 2011 and was said at the time to be in excellent health and tobacco-free after years of cigarette smoking, underwent a fitness test at a Pentagon health clinic as part of a periodic medical exam coordinated by his doctor, with the results to bereleased by February.

Jennifer O’Brien, who was fired from her job as a first-grade teacher in Paterson, N.J., after calling her students “future criminals” in a Facebook post, was not reinstated after an appellate panel ruled that her conduct wasn’t protected by the First Amendment.

Kay Bailey Hutchison, a former U.S. senator and a Texas Republican mentioned in one report as a possible successor to Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, also a Republican, would not consider a position in President Barack Obama’s Cabinet, Hutchison’s executive assistant said.

Rebecca Rubin, 39, a Canadian citizen who turned herself in after a decade as a fugitive in the largest-ever U.S. ecoterrorism investigation, pleaded innocent to conspiracy and arson charges in federal court in Oregon.

Michael Haley, the husband of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, bid farewell to his family as he departed with a National Guard unit for a month of training and then deployment to Afghanistan.

Robert Jarell Neal, 22, was arrested by police in Burlington, N.C., over allegations he stabbed a deaf man, 45-year-old Terrance Ervin Daniels, several times after mistaking his sign language for gang signs.

Ralph Beistline, a federal judge in Alaska, threw out a plan designating more than 187,000 square miles as habitat for threatened polar bears and said the designation was too extensive and presented “a disconnect between the twin goals of protecting a cherished resource and allowing for growth and much needed economic development.”

Front Section, Pages 1 on 01/13/2013