AP - Authorities in North Carolina say a Marine charged with murder in the death of his wife, an Army nurse, is scheduled to face a first-appearance hearing in court Tuesday along with a fellow serviceman.

AP - NAACP leaders meeting in in Cincinnati say they will step up their campaign against flying of the Confederate battle flag on state grounds in South Carolina.

AP - With sugar cane and pineapples fading, Hawaii's next big export to the U.S. mainland could be less sweet — 100,000 tons of trash a year.

AP - A 10-member team of elite athletes and expert mountaineers hopes to do what search planes and satellite imagery couldn't — find Steve Fossett's body.

AP - More Californians returned Monday to homes they fled when wildfires threatened and a scenic coastal highway was open to traffic again as a slight improvement in weather eased the burden on firefighters.

AP - The search for multimillionaire adventurer Steve Fossett, who vanished in September after taking off by plane from a remote Nevada ranch, is set to resume Monday in rugged mountains on the California-Nevada line where he may have crashed.

AP - Violent thunderstorms brought rain bursts that modestly helped firefighting efforts Sunday, but the downpours also triggered mudslides that complicated California's unfolding wildfire disaster.

AP - Between acres of aboveground tombs that are this marshy city's way to inter the dead, there is a strip of land that is an empty tribute to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

AP - Many firefighters and homeowners were able to take a collective breath Sunday morning as another town appeared to have been spared from yet another wildfire in the unprecedented California fire season.

AP - Governors from the coal fields of West Virginia to the corn fields of Iowa talked Sunday at their summer meeting about moving beyond ethanol produced just from food sources.

AP - Andre the two-legged dog was rescued last winter when a woman noticed the animal trailing blood across a country road.