AP - A pilot and television camera operator died Monday when their helicopter crashed near Houston on the way to cover a news story.

AP - A blaze that claimed the lives of a couple and their three children in a Manhattan apartment was likely caused by a child playing with a lighter or matches, authorities said Monday.

AP - Paul Krugman, whose relentless criticism of the Bush administration includes opposition to the $700 billion financial bailout, won the Nobel prize in economics Monday for his work on international trade patterns.

AP - Gay couples from around California and the nation are feverishly tying the knot ahead of Election Day to avoid missing out if voters approve a ballot initiative aimed at banning same-sex marriage.

AP - An out-of-work money manager in California loses a fortune and wipes out his family in a murder-suicide. A 90-year-old Ohio widow shoots herself in the chest as authorities arrive to evict her from the modest house she called home for 38 years.

AP - A Michigan mother drove roughly 12 hours to Omaha, so she could abandon her 13-year-old son at a hospital under the state's unique safe-haven law, Nebraska officials said Monday.

AP - A double murderer who says he's too fat to be executed humanely has passed a pre-execution exam and is cleared to receive a lethal injection Tuesday.

AP - Two huge wildfires driven by strong Santa Ana winds burned into neighborhoods near Los Angeles on Monday, forcing frantic evacuations on smoke- and traffic-choked highways, destroying homes and causing at least two deaths.

AP - For more than two years, U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan has been consumed by the latest entry on his resume: acting chief of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

AP - A blaze that claimed the lives of a couple and their three children in a Manhattan apartment was caused by a child playing with a lighter or matches, authorities said Monday.