LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - 'CBS Evening News' anchor Katie Couric may vividly recall her first library card, but the network says she was unaware that her online video essay about the virtues of libraries was largely a work of plagiarism.

BUTLER, Kentucky (Reuters) - As a teenager, Dan Moreland raised tobacco and favored cigarettes over seafood -- true to his rural Kentucky roots. Forty years later, Moreland farms prawns instead of tobacco, doesn't smoke, and spends free time trying out new recipes for a twice-weekly shrimp dinner.

AP - At the world's busiest airport, plainclothes officers patrolling public restrooms in search of luggage thieves have instead uncovered a rash of other, more sordid crimes.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless benefits unexpectedly jumped 19,000 last week, government data on Thursday showed in a report skewed by seasonal layoffs for school holidays.

EAST CHICAGO, Indiana (Reuters) - For rail engineers like Pat Smith, death is an inevitable part of the job.

AP - In books such as 'Slaughterhouse-Five,' 'Cat's Cradle,' and 'Hocus Pocus,' Kurt Vonnegut mixed the bitter and funny with a touch of the profound.

AP - More snow fell on parts of the Midwest Thursday, a day after a deadly storm grounded hundreds of flights, postponed a baseball game, iced up roadways and disappointed those longing for the warmth of spring.

AP - Mourners arrived Thursday morning for memorial services for an FBI agent who was killed, possibly by his own colleagues, while pursuing a group of suspected bank robbers in New Jersey last week.

AP - Hundreds of uniformed law enforcement officers filed into a memorial service Thursday for an FBI agent who was shot to death last week, possibly by his own colleague, while pursuing suspected bank robbers in New Jersey.

AP - A 70-year-old man who had just been discharged from a hospital was sent by taxi to Skid Row, and police and prosecutors were investigating whether it was the latest case of hospitals dumping patients on the street.

AP - Jurors were considering capital murder charges against a woman accused of killing her former lover's friend and cutting apart the body with a chain saw.

AP - What's the best way to make a bank robber turn around and walk out the door empty-handed? Try a handshake and a smile.

AP - A preacher's wife was trying to protect her young daughter from her abusive husband when she pointed a shotgun and accidentally shot him, her attorney said in opening statements Thursday.

AP - U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III arrived Thursday to pay their respects to an FBI agent who was shot to death, possibly by his own colleague, as he chased a group of bank robbery suspects.

AP - More snow fell across the northern states Thursday, a day after a deadly storm grounded hundreds of flights, postponed a baseball game, iced up roadways and disappointed those longing for the warmth of spring.

AP - A legislative panel on Thursday dropped a measure from an abortion bill that would have made South Carolina the only state to require women to review an ultrasound images of the fetus before terminating a pregnancy.

AP - Jail guards at a federal lockup have been charged with viciously beating two inmates and in one case trying to conceal the attack by making it look like a suicide attempt.

AP - A man known as the Band-Aid Bandit for wearing bandages to hide a distinctive mole was found guilty Thursday of stealing more than $500,000 from Florida banks along with his brother-in-law.

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) - On the surface, Brent Barber's Kansas City real estate investment company appeared to be serving a greater good -- refurbishing low-income housing across the city's blighted urban core.

AP - The Mississippi Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the manslaughter convictions of former Ku Klux Klan leader Edgar Ray Killen in the slayings of three civil rights workers in 1964.

AP - Rutgers. Not long ago, in much of the country, that word would have gotten you little more than a raised eyebrow.

AP - More snow fell across the northern states Thursday as a deadly storm that already had grounded hundreds of flights, postponed a baseball game and disappointed those longing for the warmth of spring moved eastward.

AP - A woman accused of killing and dismembering her former lover's friend was convicted Thursday of premeditated murder and could become the state's first female defendant to face the death penalty.

AP - Three former college students accused of setting a string of church fires last year pleaded guilty to state arson and burglary charges Thursday, three days after they were sentenced on related federal counts.

AP - Gov. Kathleen Sebelius on Thursday signed a law forcing an anti-gay pastor and his followers to keep their distance when protesting military funerals, but the church claims the new rules will have no effect on its demonstrations.

AP - A construction worker accused of fatally shooting a 7-year-old boy bouncing on a nearby trampoline told officers he was firing at a wooden target and had no idea anyone had been hurt.

AP - A retired grade-school teacher was killed by an officer's stray bullet during a standoff between her ex-husband and officers, authorities said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - E. coli and Salmonella infections are on the rise in the United States, but other foodborne illnesses appear to have leveled off, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday.

ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is forecasting more than 6,600 in-store medical clinics will open their doors in the next five years in retailers nationwide, a company official said on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Take a nation of do-it-yourselfers, add a ready supply of cheap nailguns and what do you get? About 37,000 nailgun injuries a year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The state of Connecticut is investigating possible improper financial relationships between student loan companies and colleges and universities, the state's top law enforcement officer said on Thursday.

AP - The disgraced district attorney in the Duke lacrosse rape case apologized to the three athletes in a carefully worded statement Thursday as their lawyers weighed whether to sue him — and some legal experts say they have a case.

AP - A preacher's wife accused of killing her husband with a shotgun blast had been depositing bad checks and feared he would find out, a prosecutor said as her murder trial opened Thursday.

AP - A man shot in the chest at his accounting office regained consciousness and talked with investigators for the first time about a former employee who fired at workers and killed one, police said Thursday.

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - Three young men who torched Alabama churches in a drunken spree last year must spend two years in state prison after completing their federal prison sentences, a judge ruled on Thursday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Best Buy Co. Inc. was slapped with a lawsuit this week alleging that a technician from the retailer's team of 'Geek Squad' installers secretly taped a woman showering when called to her home to fix a computer.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Connecticut is investigating possible improper financial relationships between student loan companies and colleges and universities, its attorney general said in the latest move in a widening U.S. scandal.

AP - Fires erupted in the hills above Los Angeles, damaging or destroying several homes, as dangerous north winds swept dry Southern California. Farther inland, a blinding sandstorm triggered a deadly highway pileup.

AP - Two years into his reign, Pope Benedict XVI is finally poised to make a major mark on American Catholicism with a string of key bishop appointments and important decisions about the future of U.S. seminaries and bishops' involvement in politics.

AP - The state Supreme Court on Thursday considered whether a death row inmate convicted in the brutal slayings of two children can hasten his own execution.

AP - Federal investigators met with family members Thursday night to discuss their report on what caused an underground explosion that killed five coal miners last year.

AP - The charisma king of the 2008 presidential field. The world's best golfer. The captain of the New York Yankees. Besides superstardom, Barack Obama, Tiger Woods and Derek Jeter have another common bond: Each is the child of an interracial marriage.

AP - A preacher's wife accused of killing her husband with a shotgun blast had been depositing bad checks and feared he would find out, a prosecutor said as her murder trial opened Thursday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The bigger they are, the harder they fall -- especially in the world of celebrity divorce.

KEY WEST, Florida (Reuters) - A U.S. sports agent was convicted on Thursday of smuggling potential major-league baseball players out of Cuba and harboring them in the United States for profit.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A California woman accused of filing more than 200 fraudulent tax returns worth more than $1 million in refunds, using the stolen identities of dead people, was hit with federal charges on Thursday.

AP - An appeals court Thursday blocked anti-Castro Cuban militant Luis Posada Carilles' release from jail just as he began the process to be freed on $250,000 bond.

AP - Jurors in a former legislator's bribery and extortion trial saw video Thursday of the politician pocketing a pile of hundred-dollar bills counted out by an undercover FBI agent.

AP - The remains of six American servicemen handed over by North Korea to a delegation led by New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson arrived on U.S. soil Thursday.

AP - A prominent psychiatrist accused of fondling his young patients was charged with four additional counts of child molestation on Thursday after two new victims came forward.

AP - Gov. Jon S. Corzine suffered a broken leg and broken ribs when his motorcade crashed Thursday en route to a meeting between radio personality Don Imus and the Rutgers women's basketball team.

AP - The illegal use of a cutting torch ignited an underground methane gas explosion that killed five coal miners last year, and the mine operator was fined $336,000 for the violations, federal investigators said late Thursday.