AP - Police in the District of Columbia are set to begin registering residents for handguns Thursday now that the district's 32-year-old ban has been lifted.

AP - Debbie Halcomb unpacked boxes as she moved back into her flood-damaged home, but worried that her damp carpet harbors mold. She enjoys the normally tranquil setting of Winfield, a community about three miles from the Mississippi River. But she's had enough. She's hoping for a government buyout so she can move to higher ground.

AP - The White House said President Bush will visit Northern California on Thursday to get a first-hand look at the wildfires that have ravaged hundreds of square miles and strained the state's firefighting resources.

AP - Just months into his job, the outsider brought in to shake up Chicago's police department is on the hot seat over an increase in homicides and other violent crimes and a decrease in gun seizures, arrests and even traffic stops.

AP - Fire crews started a controlled burn in the Los Padres National Forest in hopes of halting the massive blaze's spread through the ravaged hills of the central California coast.

AP - Nearly 40 years ago, Susan Atkins was a leading character in one of the most horrific chapters in California history.

AP - Chesapeake Bay crabber Paul Kellam has advice for the teenage boys who help tend his traps every summer: You better have a backup plan.

AP - Lou Pearlman and federal authorities have finally agreed on how much the former boy band promoter swindled from banks and investors in a decades-long scam: a staggering $300 million.

AP - Gay couples from across the country are one step closer to a Massachusetts wedding.

AP - It's a scene that's become all too familiar in North Carolina's military communities.

AP - One of the largest studies of its kind shows just how sluggish American children become once they hit the teen years: While 90 percent of 9-year-olds get a couple of hours of exercise most days, fewer than 3 percent of 15-year-olds do.