AP - The day Mount Carmel Missionary Baptist Church crumbled into shards of bricks and a pile of rubble, tears filled the eyes of the people who had tried to save the historic structure.

AP - Calmer, cooler weather helped firefighters get a handle Sunday on a destructive wildfire in the Santa Cruz Mountains that has brought a fierce start to the state's fire season.

AP - Thelma Keane, the inspiration for the Mommy character in the long-running "Family Circus" comic created by her husband, Bil Keane, has died. She was 82.

AP - Danica Patrick already had left all those comparisons to Anna Kournikova in the dust. Now she's more liable to be likened to that ornery ol' cuss, A.J. Foyt.

AP - The Libertarian Party on Sunday picked former Republican Rep. Bob Barr to be its presidential candidate after six rounds of balloting.

AP - Like spring flowers, the "For Sale" signs are sprouting in front yards all over the country. But anxious sellers are facing the most brutal environment in decades, with a slumping economy, falling home prices and rising mortgage foreclosures.

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.