BALTIMORE (AP) -- The accusations that Mayor Sheila Dixon used holiday gift cards for the needy during personal shopping sprees may sound like a minor embarrassment at worst, a small-time case of a politician enjoying the perks of power....

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- Employees at an engineering firm recognized their former co-worker when he drew a handgun from under his shirt, police said, and shot his first victim dead in the reception area. He then walked into the office and unloaded several more rounds, wounding five other employees at the company that fired him two years ago....

MIAMI (AP) -- A tropical storm warning has been issued for Grand Cayman Island as Ida gains strength over Caribbean waters....

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) -- A chaplain exhorted hundreds of mourners gathered at a candlelight vigil to not give up hope as Fort Hood and its surrounding community looked to each other for comfort after an Army psychiatrist allegedly went on a deadly shooting spree at the military base....

MIAMI (AP) -- Tropical storm warning issued for Grand Cayman Island as Ida gains strength over Caribbean....

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Members of Philadelphia's largest transit union and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority are set to vote on a contract to end the strike that has idled buses, subways and trolleys for five days....

NEW YORK (AP) -- The Navy is commissioning its newest battleship with a bow forged from steel that once held up the World Trade Center....

SHANKSVILLE, Pa. (AP) -- Esther Heymann was overflowing with grief for her stepdaughter. Standing in a blustery snow, overlooking the empty field where Flight 93 had crashed a couple of years earlier, she couldn't stop crying....

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- Suspected swine flu is sweeping a traditional Eskimo whaling village on a remote Alaska island - prompting an urgent medical mission to deliver help....

MIAMI (AP) -- Ida has become a tropical storm again, with top winds of 45 mph (72 kph), as it swirls in the Caribbean on a track that could bring it to the U.S. Gulf Coast next week....

The 13 people killed when an Army psychiatrist allegedly opened fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, included a pregnant woman who was preparing to return home, a man who quit a furniture company job to join the military about a year ago, a newlywed who had served in Iraq and a woman who had vowed to take on Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Here is a look at some of the victims....

PATCHOGUE, N.Y. (AP) -- The high school buddies who trolled the streets looking for Hispanics to attack called it "beaner hopping."...

PATCHOGUE, N.Y. (AP) -- The family of an Ecuadorean man slain on a Long Island street will be among those participating in a candlelight vigil and memorial service to mark the first anniversary of the killing....

NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- State investigators raided ACORN offices on Friday, taking away computer hard drives and documents as part of a probe into alleged embezzlement and tax fraud when the organization's national headquarters was based in New Orleans....

GALVESTON, Texas (AP) -- Two years after the remains of a toddler who came to be known as "Baby Grace" were dumped in Galveston Bay, the child's stepfather was convicted of capital murder in her beating death....

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (AP) -- A federal appeals court has ruled that Santa Cruz City Council members did not violate a man's rights when they ordered him removed from a council meeting after he made a one-armed Nazi salute....

Killing or removing 25 California sea lions over the past two years has not reduced the toll on salmon at the base of Bonneville Dam in the Columbia River....

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The U.N. Security Council joined calls Friday on Afghan President Hamid Karzai to fight corruption, with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calling the country's political situation "delicate" following deeply flawed elections....

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) -- Pfc. Marquest Smith, on his way to Afghanistan in January, was completing routine paperwork about a bee-sting allergy when the sounds erupted....

FORT HOOD, Texas (AP) -- Several hundred people gathered at a base stadium where the Army's chief chaplain offered prayers for families and victims of the shooting rampage that left 13 dead and 30 wounded at Fort Hood, Texas....

SEATTLE (AP) -- Police on Friday shot and wounded a person-of-interest sought in the Halloween night killing of a Seattle police officer, just as a massive memorial service for the officer drew to a close....

As of Friday, Nov. 6, 2009, at least 4,359 members of the U.S. military had died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count....

As of Friday, Nov. 6, 2009, at least 833 members of the U.S. military had died in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Uzbekistan as a result of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, according to the Defense Department. The department last updated its figures Friday at 10 a.m. EDT....

HACKENSACK, N.J. (AP) -- A jury convicted a Florida man Friday of murdering his former son-in-law, rejecting the man's defense that he was too fat to have run up and down a flight of stairs to commit the crime and make a quick getaway....

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- The Los Angeles City Council has given preliminary approval to an ordinance that would ban the declawing of cats....

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) -- A teenager was charged Friday with killing a nun after allegedly breaking into her trailer home on the Navajo Indian reservation in search of cash or valuable items....

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) -- A top official in Gov. Bill Richardson's cabinet has resigned over a drunken driving arrest just days after she was appointed to a spot in President Barack Obama's administration....

CHICAGO (AP) -- A fourth teen is facing murder charges in the beating death of a Chicago high school honor student last month....

MADISON, Wis. (AP) -- A Wisconsin man who got his cheesehead hat signed by President Barack Obama has decided to donate it to a museum rather than sell it on eBay....

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) -- An 85-foot blue spruce soon will embark on a long journey from the mountains of northeastern Arizona to Washington, D.C., to stand as the Capitol Christmas tree....

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) -- Thousands of family members, friends and colleagues said farewell Friday to seven Coast Guard members who died when their plane collided with a Marine helicopter off the San Diego coast....

OWOSSO, Mich. (AP) -- A Michigan man charged with killing an abortion protester and a business owner told police he had guns loaded in his truck when he took two nieces and a friend to school just before the shooting spree....

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (AP) -- An Army veteran admitted in federal court Friday to plotting with his wife to bilk the U.S. government by faking paralysis after a car wreck to get disability benefits and avoid being deployed to Iraq....

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- A man serving time for killing his infant son and trekking around the country with the child's body pleaded not guilty Friday to doing the same thing to his baby daughter....

NEW YORK (AP) -- A New York City woman convicted of killing her father and mutilating his body has been sentenced to five to 15 years in prison....

WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) -- Authorities in Wisconsin say a deputy shot an inmate at a hospital in suburban Milwaukee after the inmate began a scuffle....

LONG BEACH, Calif. (AP) -- Two 16-year-old boys have been charged as adults in the death of a 16-year-old girl who was shot after a homecoming football game in Long Beach....

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) -- As the lone survivor of a deadly 2007 Connecticut home invasion called for an investigation into why prison officials let a writer interview one of the defendants for a book, the state attorney general said Friday a probe has already begun....

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- Iraq's foreign minister has reiterated his country's request for a high-level international envoy to investigate the extent of foreign involvement in recent bombings of government institutions....

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -- An animal rights group on Friday asked a U.S. Department of Agriculture agency to look into an owner's treatment of a circus elephant that escaped and was hit by a sport utility vehicle on a northwestern Oklahoma highway....

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- A wealthy health care executive came home one night in September to find a terrifying note from his wife, Quinn Gray: The 37-year-old housewife and mother of two had been abducted from her posh Florida beach community....

Fort Hood suspect gave away belongings, said methodical goodbyes, before shooting rampage...

KILLEEN, Texas (AP) -- A civilian police officer is being praised for taking down a man suspected of opening fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood when she shot him in the torso....

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) -- An appeals court has ruled Pennsylvania State Police botched a prostitution investigation in which troopers gave an informant money to pay for sex four times at a massage parlor, along with a total of $180 for the man's trouble....

NEW YORK (AP) -- A Guatemalan designated as one of the world's biggest drug kingpins has been convicted of cocaine importation and distribution charges....

PEORIA, Ariz. (AP) -- Noor Faleh Almaleki just wanted to be a normal American woman....

PATASKALA, Ohio (AP) -- Police say an Ohio man sent a letter to a business associate saying his family would soon be dead before fatally shooting his wife, son and himself....

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) -- Some documents detailing the case against a former Yale University employee accused of killing a graduate student must be unsealed and made available to the public in three business days, a Connecticut judge ruled Friday....

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (AP) -- A federal judge imposed an unusual election system on a suburban village Friday, nearly two years after finding that the existing system was unfair to Hispanics....

SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- An Army medical official says the man suspected of opening fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood has been transferred to Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio....