AP - It's 7 a.m. in the marsh, and like some sort of cigar-chomping swamp cowboy, biologist Lindsey Hord is about to reach for something that could cost him a few fingers — or worse — if he's not careful.

AP - Luis Ramirez came to the U.S. from Mexico six years ago to look for work, landing in this town in Pennsylvania's coal region. Here, he found steady employment, fathered two children and, his fiancee said, occasionally endured harassment by white residents.

AP - A tour bus went off a state highway near Bryce Canyon National Park in southern Utah, landing upside down in a creek bed and catching fire Thursday.

AP - Two years ago, New Hampshire refused to accept heating oil from Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, the pro-Castro U.S. critic who once called President Bush "the devil." But with fuel prices rising, well, free oil is free oil.

AP - A federal investigation of the nation's largest single-site county jail has uncovered serious sanitation and medical care problems, as well as violence against prisoners who clashed with guards or failed to follow commands, officials said.

AP - For years, visitors wanting to see Denali National Park's grizzly bears, moose, sheep and caribou have had to ride school buses that polluted the air and spoiled the tranquillity with their noisy, carbon dioxide-spewing diesel engines.

AP - A huge, granite-eating machine that spent the past eight months chewing a mile-long tunnel beneath a busy Manhattan office district is getting a rest, of sorts, after completing its journey to Grand Central Terminal.

AP - The tomato scare may be over, but it has taken a toll — it's cost the industry an estimated $100 million and left millions of people with a new wariness about the safety of everyday foods.

AP - Mara Ranger will be a little paranoid doing laundry now.

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

AP - A woman has sued the call girl linked to the downfall of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, claiming Ashley Dupre used her lost driver's license to appear on a "Girls Gone Wild" video.

AP - From his office in a strip mall in the Southern California desert, energy trader Bill Rapp bet heavily that Hurricane Katrina would cause natural gas prices to go up and up and up.

AP - A parachutist went off course Thursday at the start of a military review and dropped feet-first into the 1st Infantry Division's band, injuring three players.