AP - Potent winter storms caused dozens of vehicle crashes with injuries in Colorado and Washington state Wednesday, prompting the closure of two major highways in both states.

AP - A middle school teacher accused of having sex with at least five boys — some of them students at her school — was arrested Wednesday, authorities said.

AP - Every child born in California would get a $500 savings account to start building a nest egg for college or a down payment for a home, under a state Senate bill introduced Wednesday.

AP - A man accused of stalking San Francisco's mayor was being sought by police Wednesday for trying to drive over a person three times, authorities said.

AP - A man arrested on suspicion of trying to buy a woman's baby said Wednesday that the money he gave the mother was intended only as help.

AP - Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and Kennedy insider who helped define mainstream liberalism during the Cold War and remained an eminent public thinker into the 21st century, has died, his son said. He was 89.

AP - Many states are distressingly lax in their regulation and oversight of child care centers, according to a new nationwide survey which gives its lowest marks to Idaho and Louisiana and its highest grade to the far-flung system run by the U.S. military.

AP - The disappearance of Tara Grant — whose husband says he last saw her getting into a waiting sedan in their driveway — has captivated local news and is drawing comparisons to such media-saturated stories as those of Laci Peterson and Natalee Holloway.

AP - In the last four years, Highway Patrol trooper Craig Beedy has taken part in two traffic stops that netted about $200,000 in seized cash. The agency wasn't allowed to keep any of it.

AP - Defense lawyers for the man convicted in the 1988 murders of racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife want a new trial, saying they were unfairly barred from presenting evidence about other possible suspects.

AP - A plant that would convert sewage sludge to compost may be built outside the desert town of Hinkley, whose troubles from pollution were made famous by the movie 'Erin Brockovich.'

AP - Five college students who lost campus jobs after making a gag hostage-taking video using crude Middle Eastern accents settled a lawsuit over the incident, and the college decided not to pursue disciplinary action against them, the students' lawyer and a college official said.

AP - The City Council's symbolic ban of the n-word is intended to educate a new generation about the epithet's painful past, but some young people are already shrugging off the move.

AP - A group of lawmakers wants to make it harder for police to use 'no-knock' warrants in the wake of a shootout that left an elderly woman dead after plainclothes officers stormed her home unannounced in a search for drugs.

AP - The long-delayed terrorism support and conspiracy trial of Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held for 3 1/2 years as an 'enemy combatant,' can go ahead next month after a federal judge ruled him mentally competent.

AP - Authorities identified a man whose dismembered body was found scattered around San Diego this week as a 57-year-old transient, and they were searching for an acquaintance in his killing.

AP - A man who was caught on a subway surveillance video spilling mercury on a downtown station platform was sentenced to 90 days in jail and ordered to stay away from the area's mass transit facilities.

AP - Authorities are investigating the theft of a rare 18th century manuscript about Rome's politically powerful Orsini family from an exhibit case at a University of California, Los Angeles library.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The jury deciding if former vice presidential aide Lewis 'Scooter' Libby lied when questioned about who revealed a CIA analyst's identity began its seventh day of deliberations on Thursday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The lower Ohio River has reopened to barge traffic after being shut for more than 12 hours due to a tow boat hitting a lock and a barge leaking a petrochemical into the waterway, the U.S. Coast Guard said on Thursday.

AP - Tornadoes swept through southern Missouri around dawn Thursday, damaging homes and businesses and killing at least one person a few hours after another twister touched down in Kansas, authorities said.

AP - She sipped pickle juice, held her breath, breathed into a bag, even went to a neurologist, but for more than five weeks nothing would stop a 15-year-old girl's rapid hiccups — until they finally just stopped on their own.

AP - A commission reviewing the botched lethal injection of a death row inmate urged Florida's governor find a way to ensure inmates are unconscious before the second and third extremely painful drugs are injected.

AP - Authorities identified a man whose dismembered body was found scattered around San Diego this week as a 57-year-old transient, and they arrested an acquaintance early Thursday on suspicion of murder.

AP - The New York Police Department has hired the RAND Corp. to examine its stop-and-frisk policy for evidence of racial bias after statistics surfaced showing more than a half-million pedestrians were searched last year.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The second big winter storm to hit the central United States in less than a week slammed parts of Nebraska and Iowa with near-blizzard conditions on Thursday and spun off tornadoes that killed a child in Missouri.

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Boeing Co would be a logical choice to lead the interceptor part of a planned U.S. defense missile shield in eastern Europe, the head of the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Bacteria linked to contaminated peanut butter that has sickened hundreds of people has been traced to a plant owned by ConAgra Foods Inc. where it was made, U.S. health regulators said on Thursday.

AP - Tornadoes swept through southern Missouri at dawn Thursday, damaging homes and businesses and killing a 7-year-old girl a few hours after another twister touched down in Kansas, authorities said.

AP - Former Congressman Bob Ney reported to a federal prison Thursday morning to begin serving a 2 1/2-year sentence for corruption, a fall from grace spurred by gifts from now imprisoned lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

AP - Columbine High School was evacuated Thursday after officials received at least one call about a bomb threat, authorities said.

AP - New York's most dangerous sex offenders will be locked up in psychiatric centers after their prison terms end if a court determines they continue to pose a threat to the public, Gov. Eliot Spitzer said Thursday.

AP - A big winter storm hit the Plains and Midwest with heavy wet snow and swirling winds that created whiteout conditions Thursday morning. A North Dakota couple were killed when their car overturned.

AP - The parent company of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut said it had temporarily closed several New York City restaurants owned by the franchisee that operated a Manhattan eatery overrun last week by rats.

AP - The cars of sexual predators would be marked by fluorescent green license plates under a unique proposal before Ohio lawmakers.

AP - Snowstorms briefly shut down the state's three largest highways as cars slid into one another and off the roads.

AP - In the last four years, Highway Patrol trooper Craig Beedy has taken part in two traffic stops that netted about $200,000 in seized cash. But unlike its counterparts in many other states, his agency wasn't allowed to keep it.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government on Thursday charged 13 people, including employees at major Wall Street banks, with securities fraud, wire fraud, bribery and other charges in what authorities are calling one of the most pervasive insider trading rings in years.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Will tourists accustomed to free attractions in the U.S. capital be willing to spend their money to see wax figures of politicians such as Bill and Hillary Clinton?

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - Stephen Hawking, the British physicist and best-selling author famed for his work on time and space theory while confined to a wheelchair, will soon experience the reality of zero gravity.

AP - A small delegation of North Koreans arrived in the United States on Thursday ahead of disarmament talks in New York, but the lead negotiator, Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, was not seen among them.

AP - Heavy, wet snow and blizzard conditions hit the Plains and Midwest on Thursday, shutting down hundreds of miles of two major interstate highways through the region.

AP - Steve Stanton professed his love for the city and asked the people of Largo to support his decision to undergo a sex change and allow him to keep his $140,000-a-year job as city manager.

AP - He calls himself 'The Bishop.' Exactly why is just one of the many mysteries surrounding the increasingly menacing figure.

AP - Colorado is considering letting prison inmates work on private farms after farmers complained that an illegal-immigration crackdown has left them short-handed, officials said.

AP - Ohio already tags repeat drunken drivers' cars with bright yellow license plates. Now it wants to make convicted sexual predators use fluorescent green ones.

AP - Firefighters battled high wind Thursday as a wildfire jumped a fire break and ignited several unoccupied rental cabins and up to 500 acres on a mountain near the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, officials said.

AP - The parent company of KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut said it had temporarily closed several New York City restaurants owned by the franchisee that operated a Manhattan eatery overrun last week by rats.

AP - New York's most dangerous sex offenders will be locked up in psychiatric centers after their prison terms end if a court determines they continue to pose a threat to the public, Gov. Eliot Spitzer said Thursday.

AP - Couples who live together in North Dakota will no longer be considered criminals after the House agreed Thursday to repeal the law that has been on books since statehood.

CAMP PENDLETON, California (Reuters) - A U.S. Marine accused of helping to kidnap and kill a 52-year-old Iraqi grandfather in the town of Hamdania was arraigned on Thursday on six charges, including premeditated murder and conspiracy.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A race promoter convicted of the 1988 murder of car racing legend Mickey Thompson and his wife was sentenced on Thursday to life in prison with no possibility for parole.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A verdict will not likely be reached this week in the perjury trial of former vice presidential aide Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, the judge overseeing the case said on Thursday.

AP - A former business partner of murdered racing legend Mickey Thompson was ordered Thursday to spend the rest of his life in prison, despite declaring that he was not responsible for the deaths of Thompson and his wife.

COLUMBUS, Ohio (Reuters) - Ohio's Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that a state law barring incest applied even when the victim was the perpetrator's willing 22-year-old stepdaughter.

DENVER (Reuters) - An unidentified male seeking media attention made several hoax bomb threats on Thursday to Columbine High School, scene of the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history, forcing police to evacuate the students.

AP - A Marine was arraigned a second time Thursday on charges of kidnapping and murdering an Iraqi civilian after he withdrew a guilty plea last month that had been part of a pretrial agreement.

AP - Physical evidence, including DNA from blood and fingerprints, will link a convicted sex offender to the abduction and murder of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, a prosecutor told jurors Thursday as the man's trial opened.

AP - A young doctor who admitted to severing a hand from a cadaver as a medical student, then giving it to a stripper, was fined Thursday and told to stay out of trouble for 15 months.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Access to affordable health care is the top domestic concern among Americans and a majority say the U.S. government should guarantee health insurance to every American, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll released on Thursday.