AP - City worker Eileen Shields usually spends her days answering questions about West Nile Virus, bed bugs and other health concerns, but next week she'll be one of hundreds of volunteers at City Hall helping same-sex couples tie the knot.

AP - As a wildfire bore down on his home of 15 years, hopscotching between properties here, Larry Knifong decided to take his chances and stay — that is, until the flames raced up a ridge toward this ranch-style house.

AP - Hospital patients in wheelchairs and on stretchers were evacuated in the middle of the night as the biggest flood Cedar Rapids has ever seen swamped more than 400 blocks Friday and all but cut off the supply of clean drinking water in the city of 120,000.

AP - Heterosexual couples are rushing to get married in a conservative California county that plans to halt all civil wedding ceremonies as gay marriage is set to be legalized.

AP - The operator of a high-priced escort service that counted a former New York governor among its clients pleaded guilty Thursday after a criminal probe put the company out of business and Eliot Spitzer out of office.

AP - A metal clip fell from Discovery's brakes on Friday but NASA said it won't delay the space shuttle's scheduled landing on Saturday.

AP - As a tornado bore down on their town, Debby Peterson and her husband knew they had to find shelter. Their own home didn't have a basement, so they ran to their neighbor's.

AP - Rising water from the Cedar River forced the evacuation of a downtown hospital Friday after residents of more than 3,000 homes fled for higher ground. A railroad bridge collapsed, and 400 city blocks were under water.

AP - Friday is payday at KIPP DC: KEY Academy, and some sixth-grade girls gather at the makeshift school store trying to decide how to spend their hard-earned money.

AP - In the shadow of the Kennedy Space Center, the countdown has begun in the towns that run on the space program's clock.

AP - Strong, erratic winds complicated firefighters attempts' to put down several fast-growing wildfires across Northern California, including a blaze that now enveloped more than 31 square miles and threatened 4,600 structures, officials said.

AP - First came the shock, then the grief. As dozens of people injured in a tornado at an Iowa Boy Scout camp recovered, families and friends tried to make sense of the deaths of four teenage Scouts who had gone to the elite camp to learn how to be leaders.