AP - A container ship pilot will retire rather than testify at a hearing on his conduct when a vessel he was piloting struck a bridge support tower last year, creating the worst oil spill in San Francisco Bay in nearly two decades.

AP - Florida on Tuesday carried out its first execution since a botched lethal injection procedure prompted the state to revamp the way it conducts capital punishment.

AP - A man arrested in the hit-and-run death of a police officer was found strangled in his cell, and investigators focused Tuesday on guards at the suburban Maryland jail, which has a history of security lapses.

AP - Millions of California motorists have had to put down their cell phones or risk a ticket as a new law takes effect requiring hands-free devices for those behind the wheel.

AP - Three of the state's governors have served time. Scores of legislators and aldermen have gotten into legal trouble over the years. But Illinois politicians haven't seriously considered impeaching one of their own — until now.

AP - California's raging wildfires have created a smoky haze so stifling that some doctors in the state's landlocked farm country say their waiting rooms have been crowding with patients struggling to breathe amid the soot-laden air.

AP - Police and FBI agents captured an ex-convict suspected of killing eight people in two states as he smoked a cigarette outside of a southwestern Illinois bar Tuesday night.

AP - The World Trade Center's owner announced a major design change to its multibillion-dollar transit hub Tuesday, a day after concluding that most projects at ground zero are behind schedule and over budget.

AP - Ruth M. Jones doesn't know what she'd do without hot meals delivered daily to her home. The 81-year-old Charleston widow can't walk or drive since a car wreck nine years ago left her stricken by arthritis.

AP - In New Orleans, cocktails are serious business. What better town for a temple to the tasty history of the American libation?

AP - Authorities on Tuesday ordered new evacuations along a strip of coast near Big Sur where firefighters were battling one of the hundreds of lightning-sparked wildfires across Northern California.

AP - Ever since he fatally shot two men he suspected of burglarizing his next-door neighbor's home, 62-year-old Joe Horn has been both praised and vilified for his actions.

AP - Environmentalists are suing the U.S. Forest Service over what they say is an illegal dole: The agency's long-standing practice of subsidizing corn and soybean farming on a nature preserve in western Kentucky and Tennessee.