AP - A wildfire that had burned more than 2,000 acres and forced more than 1,000 people from their homes north of Los Angeles was only smoldering early Monday, but worries were rampant as several hours of severe winds were expected to hit the region later in the day.

AP - A school bus driver and his nephew died when a fire ravaged their apartment, a day after the city's deadliest blaze in nearly two years killed a couple and three children.

AP - A month later, piles of Sheetrock, appliances, furniture and family mementos dot most streets in this island town. Electronic road signs in southeast Texas flash, "Watch for cows next 20 miles," a reminder that few fences remain to hem in livestock. Blue tarps cover 11,000 roofs for 100 miles from Houston to the Louisiana line.

AP - In the beginning, there was a boy, a girl and an apple.

AP - She shot herself in the chest Oct. 1 before she could be taken away from the foreclosed house, which was worth less than its mortgage from the day she took out the loan.

AP - In the Tenderloin, corner stores sell more alcohol than food, drug-addled pan handlers shake paper cups at passers-by and churches vie for real estate with strip clubs.

AP - The attorney for a Marine accused of killing a pregnant colleague says his client is fighting extradition to the United States.

AP - A watched clock never moves — unless it's the National Debt Clock.

AP - Chicago's police superintendent is denying a news report that officers in his command are working the streets less aggressively out of fear of being second-guessed by him.

AP - David Letterman and Sen. John McCain will get a chance to make up.

AP - Trillions in stock market value — gone. Trillions in retirement savings — gone. A huge chunk of the money you paid for your house, the money you're saving for college, the money your boss needs to make payroll — gone, gone, gone.

AP - National forests and parks — long popular with Mexican marijuana-growing cartels — have become home to some of the most polluted pockets of wilderness in America because of the toxic chemicals needed to eke lucrative harvests from rocky mountainsides, federal officials said.

AP - The collection spans 50 countries and four centuries and touches on subjects ranging from beer marketing to 19th-century Portuguese politics.

AP - Pilots of hot air balloons on Saturday mourned the loss of one of their own in a fiery crash at Albuquerque's famous festival, even as they said another pilot fighting for his life after the accident would want them to keep flying.

AP - Now that the Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled same-sex couples have the right to wed, opponents of gay marriage are pinning their hopes on an infrequent ballot question in a longshot bid to block the unions.

AP - A strange cold case murder story that stretched halfway around the globe and back over a span of nearly 30 years ended this weekend a few blocks from where it began, with the shocking suicide of Japanese businessman Kazuyoshi Miura in a downtown jail cell.

AP - The emotionally charged battle over end-of-life decisions has taken to the airwaves as Washington state voters decide whether to allow doctors to prescribe lethal medication to terminally ill patients.