AP - Bringing an end to the state's longest-ever budget fight, California lawmakers approved changes to their $143 billion spending plan and ceded to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's demands for a more robust rainy day fund.

AP - One week after Hurricane Ike wiped out whole neighborhoods and nearly every basic service in Galveston, there is a plan to start letting some 45,000 evacuees back to their hobbled hometown.

AP - Crews worked Friday to throw up makeshift dams after a levee break weakened this normally dusty West Texas border town's defenses against the swollen Rio Grande.

AP - In an unprecedented step, a space shuttle was moved to the launch pad Friday for a trip NASA hopes it will never make — a rescue mission. The shuttle Endeavour is on standby in case the seven astronauts who go up on Atlantis next month need a safer ride home.

AP - Hillary Rodham Clinton is stepping up efforts to swing her supporters behind Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, her former rival for the nomination.

AP - Like some other residents of this small town, Mary Elizabeth Goodwyn doesn't go outside after dark much anymore.

AP - Ken Cockrel Jr. was sworn in as mayor Friday, vaulted into office by a sex scandal that destroyed the reign of Kwame Kilpatrick and threw the nation's 11th-largest city into chaos for months.

AP - Authorities laid out a plan Friday — a week after Hurricane Ike began lashing the Texas coast with 110-mph winds and relentless storm surge — to let about 45,000 anxious evacuees back onto Galveston Island for good.