AP - A former pizza deliveryman accused of being one of the city's most prolific serial killers was ordered Tuesday to stand trial on charges of murdering 10 women, two of whom were pregnant.

AP - A woman accused of helping her husband kill their 8-year-old daughter because they believed she was demonic pleaded guilty to murder Tuesday.

AP - Colorado voters agreed Tuesday to give up $3.7 billion in taxpayer refunds over the next five years to allow the state to bounce back from a recession, ignoring the arguments of fiscal conservatives who say the government doesn't need more money to spend.

AP - Trial began Tuesday in the state's second attempt to hold former makers of lead-based paint accountable for a product that prosecutors say has sickened children and contaminated hundreds of thousands of homes.

AP - Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, spent their first evening in the United States mingling with celebrities at a glitzy New York reception — but it was a tour of ground zero that seemed to affect them most deeply.

AP - Thousands of people prepared to honor Rosa Parks at her funeral, after at least 60,000 paid tribute to the civil rights pioneer in her native state of Alabama, the nation's capital and her adopted city of Detroit.

AP - In the early decades of the University of North Carolina, servants kindled fires in students' rooms and cut wood to fuel stoves. The 216-year-old school, which takes pride in being the nation's oldest public university, is now airing a shameful side of its past — those servants were slaves.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Attention baby boomers, parents of college kids and culture seekers: areas near Texas Tech and Mississippi State are the most affordable college towns for second home purchases while Stanford or UCLA in California are the most costly.

AP - Residents of the Mile High City have voted to legalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana for adults. Authorities, though, said state possession laws will be applied instead.

AP - Unable to win their way with votes, outnumbered Democrats used a rarely invoked Senate rule to force a secret session as a way to dramatize their assertions that the Bush administration misused intelligence in the run-up to war in Iraq.

AP - A woman who admitted hiding the body of a 7-year-old relative in a basement storage bin was sentenced Wednesday to 25 years in state prison under a plea deal.

AP - With a strike halting most of the city's public transportation for a third day, negotiations between the region's largest transit agency and its workers' union broke off early Wednesday with no sign of progress.

AP - For decades, Jean Jesse has dreamed of building a home on the plot she owns near the Portland suburb of Hillsboro. She may have to dream a little longer. When voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure last year loosening some of the strictest zoning restrictions in America, Jesse hoped she would be able to erect a house on the land she's owned since 1969.

AP - Gov. Rick Perry railed against the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Tuesday, saying its inaction is putting tens of thousands of hurricane victims at risk of getting evicted and preventing law enforcement from knowing which of the evacuees are dangerous criminals.

AP - The red-jacketed Michelin guidebook, considered a Bible for food connoisseurs in Europe, has revealed its rankings of New York restaurants — and may have some chefs seeing stars.

AP - Repairs to New Orleans' levees may be insufficient to protect residents moving back to the devastated city if another hurricane comes before the tropical storm season ends this month, expert engineers said Wednesday.

AP - Five siblings who were members of a Mennonite family died when the pickup truck their father was driving was struck head-on by a pickup truck traveling in the wrong lane, the Washington State Patrol said Wednesday.

AP - A small-town judge ordered removed from office because he has three wives faced a hearing before the state Supreme Court on Wednesday in his bid to remain on the bench.

AP - A judge threw out most of the penalties levied against a mine operator for fatal blasts in 2001, saying government regulators didn't prove wrongdoing.

AP - A judge on Wednesday upheld the conviction of an aide to Osama bin Laden in the bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa despite government 'inaction, incompetence and stonewalling' that he said had seriously jeopardized its case.

AP - Repairs to New Orleans' levees may be insufficient to protect residents moving back to the devastated city if another hurricane comes before the tropical storm season ends this month, expert engineers said Wednesday.

AP - The outgoing president of Randolph-Macon College in Virginia, Roger Martin is an Oxford-trained church historian. His successor is a career fundraiser who brought in about $3 billion for his last two employers.

AP - Mayor Thomas M. Menino would prefer to be known as the 'Urban Mechanic.' But since 'Mumbles' is the nickname that stuck, he is trying to turn his mushmouth style to his advantage in his bid to become the longest-serving mayor in Boston history.

AP - A man convicted of raping and murdering an Alabama woman has confessed to at least 12 more slayings in four other states, and may be linked to four more killings, authorities said Wednesday.

AP - A woman has been sentenced to a year of probation for responding to an airport pat-down search by grabbing the screener's breasts and asking, 'How would you like it if I did that to you?'

AP - A man in a firefighter costume set a small blaze in a stairwell to dupe a woman into letting him into her apartment, then sexually assaulted her, police said.

AP - A federal appeals court Wednesday threw out a former insurance salesman's death sentence for arranging his wife's murder 22 years ago in a case that was the subject of a true-crime book and a TV miniseries.

AP - Five Muslim football fans were detained and questioned during a game at Giants Stadium because they were congregating near an air duct on a night former President Bush was in the stadium, the FBI said Wednesday.

AP - President Bush's directive banning the torture of terror suspects applies to all prisoners — even if held in a secret prison reportedly set up by the CIA for its most important al-Qaida captives, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

AP - Vermont on Wednesday approved stricter standards for vehicle emissions to reduce greenhouse gases, leading five other Northeastern states working on the same rules.

AP - Nearly 7 million adults were in U.S. prisons or on probation or parole at the end of last year, 30 percent more than in 1995, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

AP - The outgoing president of Randolph-Macon College in Virginia, Roger Martin is an Oxford-trained church historian. His successor is a career fundraiser who brought in about $3 billion for his last two employers.

AP - A trove of John F. Kennedy memorabilia amassed by a cleaning-supplies salesman — from presidential doodles to a "hot line" telephone to the White House — will be auctioned next month.

AP - Once a proud businessman, William Dwyer sits in a parking lot these days begging his insurer for money. The 57-year-old retiree said he was quick to file claims after Hurricane Katrina severely damaged his home in suburban Slidell. An adjuster inspected the property about four weeks after the storm, but after four more weeks he's heard nothing about compensation aside from a cash advance for living expenses.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States risks losing sight of some key foreign policy issues, including relations with China and the Muslim world, because of its 'single-minded focus' on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a former senior Pentagon official said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Britain's Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, visited the White House on Wednesday on their first formal trip together to the U.S. capital, where memories of the late Princess Diana are still strong.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wall Street's 'Bond King' Bill Gross and another stamp collector swapped the two most valuable items in the philatelic world on Wednesday in a trade experts called the biggest deal in 100 years.

DENVER (Reuters) - Judges cannot second-guess U.S. officials who bar foreigners deemed security risks from receiving flight training, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A onetime pizza delivery man who police say is the most prolific serial killer in Los Angeles history has been ordered to stand trial for strangling 10 women.

AP - Four Air Force officers have joined a lawsuit claiming senior officers and cadets at the Air Force Academy illegally imposed Christianity on others at the school.

AP - Lawyers for 12 sex criminals who are being held in mental hospitals after their prison sentences ended complained to a judge Wednesday that the state is holding them illegally, a charge the state's lawyer denied.

AP - In a multimillion-dollar swap, a California collector traded a block of four 1918 stamps bearing the image of an upside-down plane Wednesday for an equally rare 1868 one-cent stamp.