AP - J.R. Simplot left home in 1923 at age 14 with four gold coins given to him by his mother. He ended his life as the spud king of America and one of the nation's richest men.

AP - All too familiar with the gambles of war, Jimmy Kinsey, Kyle Riley and a few dozen fellow soldiers landed in the desert. But for these guys this Memorial Day, the most at stake is a few bucks.

AP - Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday offered a spiritual defense for continuing her presidential campaign, as she sought to put to rest the uproar over her comments about the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy.

AP - Oil was supported above $132 a barrel Monday in Asia by ongoing worries about global petroleum supplies and the outlook this week for the U.S. dollar.

AP - NASA's newest outpost in the solar system is a polygon-cracked terrain in Mars' northern polar region believed to hold a reservoir of ice beneath.

AP - Powerful storms packing large hail, heavy rain and tornadoes made for a deadly Memorial Day weekend across the nation's midsection, killing at least seven people in Iowa and a 2-year-old child in Minneapolis.

AP - A slow-moving storm packing tornadoes and hail battered rural Oklahoma on Saturday, destroying several buildings, tearing up trees and tossing a mobile home onto a highway. The bodies of two storm victims were found in Kansas.

AP - A three-legged NASA spacecraft was closing in on Mars Sunday for what scientists hope will be the first-ever touchdown near Mars' north pole to study whether the permafrost could have supported primitive life.

AP - Firefighters took advantage of cooler temperatures and calmer winds Saturday as they continued to fight a persistent wildfire in the Santa Cruz Mountains that has chewed through acres of centuries-old redwoods, destroyed at least 20 homes and displaced hundreds of people.

AP - Mitch Bocik waddles to the putting green, his legs bent and unsteady, his putter doubling as a cane. For balance, his left hand grips the right shoulder of D.J. Engel, his half brother and almost constant companion.

AP - The young Marine came back from the war, with his toughest fight ahead of him. Merlin German waged that battle in the quiet of a Texas hospital, far from the dusty road in Iraq where a bomb exploded, leaving him with burns over 97 percent of his body.

AP - Biologist Noel Snyder got an intriguing call from a development-company representative a day after it announced it was moving forward with plans to build nearly 3,500 luxury homes, condos and hotels on land used by the endangered California condor.

AP - After a nearly 10-month journey, a NASA spacecraft will land softly Sunday on the northern polar region of Mars, if all goes as planned.