NEW YORK (AP) -- Prosecutors say the father of a Colorado airport driver accused in a terror plot against New York City has pleaded not guilty to obstructing the investigation....

LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE, Calif. (AP) -- Homeowners in mud-ravaged foothill towns north of Los Angeles packed their cars and left Tuesday as evacuation orders took hold and a new winter storm arrived....

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- California's senior senator wants to halt the proposed expansion of the West's largest toxic waste dump while the state investigates birth defects in a nearby town....

NEW YORK (AP) -- A medical expert says a man claiming he was sodomized by police with a baton did not have severe enough injuries to support his account....

CLEVELAND (AP) -- A jury on Tuesday acquitted three former employees of an Ohio treatment center for troubled teens of involuntary manslaughter in the death of a 17-year-old girl who suffocated and choked on her own vomit after being restrained facedown on the floor....

TYLER, Texas (AP) -- A spate of recent fires that destroyed or damaged several churches in eastern Texas were intentionally set, likely by the same person or group, federal authorities said Tuesday....

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iranian nuclear technicians set dozens of centrifuges spinning Tuesday to begin enriching uranium stocks to a significantly higher level, prompting President Barack Obama to warn of a "significant regime of sanctions."...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- If snow keeps 230,000 government employees home for the better part of a week, will anyone notice? With at least another foot of snow headed for Washington, Philadelphia and New York, we're about to find out. The federal government in the nation's capital has largely been shut down since Friday afternoon, when a storm began dumping up to 3 feet of snow in some parts of the region. Offices could remain closed at least through Wednesday....

SANTA ANA, Calif. (AP) -- A California man with a genius IQ who is charged with the serial killings of five females donned an earring Tuesday and took the witness stand in his own defense....

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- New York Gov. David Paterson says he believes an anticipated story by The New York Times about his personal conduct won't include much-rumored talk of wild behavior....

BROCKTON, Mass. (AP) -- A Massachusetts woman was convicted of second-degree murder Tuesday in the fatal prescription drug overdose of her 4-year-old daughter....

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- A former Philadelphia police officer has turned himself in to face murder charges in the shooting death of a neighbor during an off-duty altercation last year....

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) -- The convicted killer of a Kansas abortion provider has little sympathy for the family of his victim, comparing them to the relatives of a hit man in a recording posted online....

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- The man who took hostages at a Hillary Rodham Clinton presidential campaign office in 2007 cut off his electronic monitoring bracelet Tuesday, then fled, and he is considered dangerous, authorities said....

BROCKTON, Mass. (AP) -- Mass. mother guilty of second-degree murder in daughter's fatal prescription drug overdose....

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- A North Carolina court has temporarily stopped the security rules that a judge issued for the retrieval of the John Edwards sex tape....

DENVER (AP) -- Police in at least two states are increasingly using a DNA crime-solving technique that some legal experts say amounts to guilt by association: If your brother, father, uncle or son has been in trouble with the law and is in a DNA database because of it, you, too, could fall under suspicion....

DETROIT (AP) -- A federal judge has ordered an Ohio man detained after authorities say he walked through a passenger screening checkpoint at Detroit Metropolitan Airport without a boarding pass, prompting an evacuation....

PHOENIX (AP) -- Federal wildlife officials plan to move a handful of endangered Sonoran pronghorns to the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge in western Arizona next winter in hopes of establishing a new population of the rare animals....

NEW YORK (AP) -- Ted Anthony, a veteran editor and correspondent for The Associated Press who has helped develop social media strategies and new storytelling techniques in AP newsrooms, has been named an assistant managing editor for the news cooperative....

DETROIT (AP) -- A Michigan man who had hundreds of live and dead Chihuahuas and Chihuahua mixes in his home has been sentenced to five years of probation in a mental health program and ordered not to own animals....

HONOLULU (AP) -- A retired Army master sergeant who pleaded guilty to bribery and money-laundering charges stemming from his time in Iraq has been sentenced to three years and four months in prison....

MIDDLETOWN, Conn. (AP) -- A worker who was in a Connecticut power plant when it exploded on Sunday tells The Associated Press there was a smell of natural gas in the plant less than an hour before the blast....

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- A lawyer for a Rutgers University graduate student charged with a January security breach at Newark Liberty Airport that led to worldwide flight delays entered a plea of not guilty Tuesday and defended his client as "simply a lovesick man who made a mistake."...

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- A former state legislative aide testifying in a public corruption trial delved into his sex life Tuesday, saying under cross-examination that he had been having problems with sexual performance for which he received medical treatment....

SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- Police began excavating a landfill Tuesday in search of a body or other evidence in the disappearance of an 8-month-old Arizona boy who was last seen with his mother at a San Antonio hotel on the day after Christmas....

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A suspect was arrested Tuesday in the killing of a well-known anti-gang counselor who was shot to death when he confronted a tagger writing graffiti in Los Angeles, police said....

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) -- A registered sex offender has been indicted on murder charges in the death of an 11-year-old Maryland girl whose body was found on Christmas day....

CLEVELAND (AP) -- A family member who testified earlier that an Ohio doctor denied poisoning his wife now says the defendant admitted to the killing....

CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- A New Hampshire House committee is recommending against repealing the state's five-week-old gay marriage law....

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) -- A glider pilot who flew to safety through a fireball from the midair collision of two planes over Boulder says it was just seconds between when he saw one plane approaching and when it collided with the plane towing him....

BLAINE, Minn. (AP) -- Betsy Sathers wears the glow of a new mother as she perches on the couch in her family room, smiling and chatting with visitors while still managing to keep an eye on the 2-year-old twins burbling and cavorting at her feet....

NEW YORK (AP) -- So you're a guy? Poor you!...

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- Rep. John Murtha, who said the Bush administration's handling of the war in Iraq was based on "flawed policy wrapped in illusion" and called for a withdrawal of U.S. troops there, is being remembered as an advocate on Capitol Hill for those serving in military uniform....

Snowy weather was expected to move into the Eastern U.S. from the Plains on Tuesday....

SAGUACHE, Colo. (AP) -- A 31-year-old Indiana man says he had not food but kept himself hydrated with Mountain Dew and snow while he was stuck in his snow-covered SUV in southwestern Colorado for three days....

IRVINE, Calif. (AP) -- Eleven students have been arrested during a raucous lecture at University of California, Irvine, where Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren spoke about U.S.-Israel relations....

YARMOUTH, Maine (AP) -- Maine officials say two cross-sections cut from a 217-year-old giant elm named Herbie will be displayed by the town of Yarmouth and the state Forest Service....

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) -- A 22-year-old New York mother accused of going out on a midnight beer run when a stove fire erupted in the apartment where her children were left alone has been found guilty of criminally negligent homicide....

JOLIET, Ill. (AP) -- The second wife of a former suburban Chicago police sergeant has testified at his murder trial that he threatened to kill her and make it look like an accident....

HONOLULU (AP) -- The U.S. Coast Guard says the 28 crew members of a fishing vessel that caught fire 900 miles southwest of Honolulu have abandoned ship and are in two life rafts....

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) -- Attorneys for a motivational speaker charged in the deaths of three people during an Arizona sweat lodge ceremony wasted no time going on the offensive after his arrest last week....

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- An instructor at a public community college in Fresno has been presenting his religious views on homosexuality, abortion and global warming as fact to students in an introductory health science class, the American Civil Liberties Union alleged Monday....

MADISON, Ala. (AP) -- A lawyer for a ninth-grader charged with shooting a fellow student to death at their Alabama school says the violence was likely related to gang activity....

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) -- Federal prosecutors say former New York City police commissioner Bernard Kerik should go directly to jail when he's sentenced next week....

NEW YORK (AP) -- A graphic designer accused of surreptitiously killing a series of his girlfriend's cats pleaded guilty Monday to aggravated animal cruelty, ending an eerie case in which authorities said the unsuspecting woman kept replacing her dying pets....

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) -- A wealthy 68-year-old jeweler with two ex-wives in Europe who is accused of killing his third wife and burning her body testified Monday that he learned how bodies are incinerated when he questioned a mortician about his mother's cremation....

LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Federal land managers said Monday they'll delay a roundup of most of the nearly 600 wild horses in a range in eastern Nevada, at least until after the herd's spring foaling season....

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) -- The Rhode Island Fire Marshal says officials have pinpointed the origins of a house fire that killed five people, including a 7-month-old baby, but still haven't figured out the cause....

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- The U.S. Department of Homeland Security conducted a threat assessment of local pro- and anti-abortion rights activists before an expected rally last year, even though they did not pose a threat to national security....