AP - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is threatening to pay thousands of state employees the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour until lawmakers reach a deal on California's overdue state budget.

AP - The scene repeats itself daily on city streets: a driver gets stuck bumper to bumper, blocking an intersection and preventing another car from turning left.

AP - If you vote by mail, but die before Election Day, does your vote count? It depends on where you lived.

AP - Residents across south Texas slogged through knee-deep muddy waters, tiptoed around downed power lines and dug through debris Thursday, but were thankful that Hurricane Dolly didn't pack the wallop they had feared.

AP - Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama paid a predawn visit to the holiest place in Judaism on Thursday, bowing his head in prayer at the Western Wall.

AP - A federal judge on Wednesday upheld the corruption convictions of former Newark Mayor Sharpe James and his one-time mistress, but indicated that James probably will get less than the 15- to 20-year prison sentence prosecutors are seeking.

AP - A state lawmaker who gained national notoriety with an anti-homosexual rant was stopped from entering the state Capitol Wednesday when she was found to have a loaded handgun in her purse, the Oklahoma Highway Patrol said.

AP - Dr. Victor A. McKusick, a key architect of the Human Genome Project and a winner of the National Medal of Science, has died. He was 86.

AP - Texas executed a man Wednesday who was convicted of killing a woman and her child, while Mississippi put to death a man who took part in the fatal beating of another man.

AP - The World Trade Center site's owner has offered $20 million to acquire the 1,200-square-foot lot of a church destroyed on Sept. 11, freeing one more piece of land needed to rebuild every inch of ground zero.

AP - The judge in the trial of convicted Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui says she told jurors that they made the right decision in sparing his life.

AP - The Hong Kong-based operator of a container ship that struck a bridge support in the San Francisco Bay last year has been indicted for allegedly doctoring paperwork in an attempt to thwart the investigation.