AP - A large tornado skipped through several northern Colorado towns on Thursday, destroying dozens of homes, flipping tractor-trailers and freight rail cars, and killing at least one person.

AP - A prosecutor told jurors Thursday that a man charged with a fatal shooting at a Jewish center knew right from wrong and used murder to get out a message.

AP - Once hunted to the brink of extinction, humpback whales have made a dramatic comeback in the North Pacific Ocean over the past four decades, a new study says.

AP - It was so singular a marvel, so ambitious a feat, that its opening drew the president and a crowd of thousands. A leading national magazine said it stood poised to become "our most durable monument."

AP - Three young men, including two who had been working offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, have been arrested in the killing of two Louisiana State University graduate students late last year, authorities said Thursday.

AP - A conservative legal group asked the California Supreme Court on Thursday to put off finalization of its decision legalizing same-sex marriage until voters got a chance to weigh in.

AP - Gusty winds fanned a wildfire Thursday that burned several homes, forced evacuations and closed schools in the mountains of central California, where rugged terrain frustrated efforts to get a handle on the fast-moving blaze.

AP - An appellate court decision upended the custody case that sent more than 440 children from a polygamist sect's ranch into foster care, but it's not clear whether the children might soon return home.

AP - Residents of a devastated neighborhood grabbed what they could from their debris-strewn homes before police imposed an overnight curfew after a tornado swept through northern Colorado, killing one person and injuring 13.

AP - The 5-year-old daughter of Grammy-winning Christian music star Steven Curtis Chapman was struck and killed Wednesday by a sport utility vehicle driven by her brother, authorities said.

AP - The military cannot automatically discharge people because they're gay, a federal appeals court ruled in the case of a decorated flight nurse who sued the Air Force over her dismissal.

AP - Chain saws scream in a northern Michigan forest, but it's not the familiar sound of lumberjacks.

AP - It was so singular a marvel, so ambitious a feat, that its opening drew the president and a crowd of thousands. A leading national magazine said it stood poised to become "our most durable monument."