AP - Charismatic and politically bold, both San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa seem like naturals to help Democrats reclaim the governor's office in 2010.
AP - Three months after four bodies were found shot execution-style in an airplane hangar on the B&B Ranch north of Dallas in 1984, chemical salesman Lester Leroy Bower Jr. was charged with capital murder.
AP - Auto industry cutbacks, double-digit unemployment and one of the nation's highest home foreclosure rates have left Detroit with a dreary economic future.
AP - Even folks in the Optimist Club are having a tough time toeing an upbeat line these days. Eighteen members of the volunteer organization's Gilbert, Ariz., chapter have gathered, a few days before this nation's 232nd birthday, to focus on the positive: Their book-drive for schoolchildren and an Independence Day project to place American flags along the streets of one neighborhood.
AP - Authorities in Toledo, Ohio, say a fast-moving fire at an apartment complex has destroyed eight buildings and left more than 100 people homeless. -- read full article
AP - Riding a green lawn chair supported by a rainbow array of more than 150 helium-filled party balloons, Kent Couch took off Saturday in a third bid to fly from central Oregon all the way to Idaho.
AP - Cool, damp weather early Saturday helped crews gain ground on the huge wildfire that wiped out this coastal retreat's holiday tourist trade, allowing some personnel and gear to be shifted to a growing blaze farther south
AP - When Kevin Grosenheider received a call early Monday from his friend, Raymond Gagnon, asking him to dispose of a safe, he decided to help him out.
AP - A combative cat named Lewis who frightened the neighbors and got his owner into legal trouble two years ago has done so well under house arrest that the case has now been scratched. -- read full article
AP - More than a dozen people, some wearing orange protective gear, pulled rakes and shovels from a dingy shopping cart and started working on a parched patch of land along a busy off-ramp of the Hollywood Freeway.
AP - At least one person fired a gun into a crowd in a street early Friday, killing four people and sending panicked revelers running for cover, police said.
