LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (Reuters) - Helen Walton, widow of the founder of the Wal-Mart discount retail empire, died Thursday night at her home in Bentonville, Arkansas, where the corporation is headquartered. She was 87.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Filmmaker Oliver Stone will direct a TV commercial questioning the Bush administration's military strategy in Iraq.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. has agreed to reevaluate Hurricane Katrina claims related to Mississippi homes that were completely destroyed by the 2005 storm, the state's insurance department said on Thursday.

AP - Virginia Tech shooter Cho Seung-Hui's homage to the Columbine High School killers has made preparations for Friday's eighth anniversary of the Colorado rampage all the more devastating, survivors and victims' relatives said.

AP - A man who allegedly threatened a school attack in Yuba City that would dwarf the Virginia Tech attacks turned himself in, ending a manhunt that prompted school districts in two cities to tighten security, authorities said.

AP - A man was in custody Friday in the rape and torture of a Columbia University graduate student who was held hostage for 19 hours in her apartment, police said.

AP - Eight months ago, the mere possibility that a gunman was headed to Virginia Tech was enough for school officials to cancel classes and order a campus-wide lockdown. This week, the response was much different: Authorities waited more than two hours to alert the school's nearly 26,000 students that two of their classmates had been shot dead in a dormitory.

AP - A plan to require public schools to teach classes with the Bible as a textbook was changed by a Texas legislative panel to make such classes optional instead.

AP - Gusting wind could help firefighters Friday by pushing a 45-square-mile wildfire from the boggy Okefenokee Swamp to an upland area where it would be easier to control, officials said.

BOSTON (Reuters) - The Vermont state senate passed a symbolic resolution on Friday calling on the U.S. Congress to impeach U.S. President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney over their handling of the unpopular Iraq war.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - When Apple Inc. sits for contract negotiations with the major record companies over the next month, it will probably seek further concessions from them on selling music without copy-protection software.

AP - Four high school athletes sprinted out of a track meet to rescue an elderly woman from a burning home.

AP - Gov. Ted Kulongoski and his wife are used to eating the best their bountiful state has to offer: fresh salmon, huckleberries and mushrooms foraged from the Cascade mountains.

AP - A newly released court document details four decades of alleged Chicago mob killings, including the slayings of six men accused of robbing the vault of the Mafia's biggest boss.

AP - Vermont senators voted Friday to call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, saying their actions have raised 'serious questions of constitutionality.'

AP - A homeless ex-convict was arrested in the rape and torture of a Columbia University graduate student, who was held hostage for 19 hours in her apartment, cut with a knife and left tied up with the bed set ablaze.

AP - Workers on Friday found the body of one of two miners trapped when a wall section collapsed in an open-pit coal mine in western Maryland, a federal mine official said.

AP - A bomb threat at the state Capitol prompted an evacuation of the Senate, House and executive tower Friday morning.

AP - Sgt. Paul Miles' family knew something was different about him when he came back from Iraq. The Eagle Scout and former church missionary was jumpy. Behind the wheel, he would suddenly drive as if under attack. Later they would learn he built a bomb and used it to damage a statue of the Virgin Mary. Then, he killed a cat.

AP - As they marked the eighth anniversary Friday of the Columbine school shooting and mourned the recent victims at Virginia Tech, many Littleton families were also questioning a judge's decision to seal information about the killers.

AP - A baby sitter already accused of killing a pregnant friend was charged Friday with drowning the woman's three children in a bath tub and then hiding the bodies in the family's washing machine and dryer.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush ordered top federal officials on Friday to review issues raised by the Virginia Tech university shooting rampage, including how to deal with warning signs of people with mental illness.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An influential U.S. panel of energy experts has toughened its recommendations on global warming emissions, aiming for a 15 percent cut in greenhouse gases by 2030, a spokesman for the group said on Friday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - An experimental rabies treatment that saved the life of a teen-ager in 2004 has failed to help two other children infected with the deadly virus, U.S. experts said on Friday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Friday raised the possibility of raising tolls during rush hour as part of a traffic-jam fighting strategy and using the extra money to improve mass transit.

AP - An idea of reducing traffic by charging motorists who drive into the heart of Manhattan got Mayor Michael Bloomberg's support Friday.

LITTLETON, Colo. (Reuters) - Columbine High School and the town of Littleton, Colorado, quietly marked the eighth anniversary of the 1999 massacre on Friday, haunted by the worst shooting rampage in modern U.S. history just four days ago.

DENVER (Reuters) - Security alerts forced the evacuation of schools in Colorado and California, the Arizona State capitol and a NASA building in Houston on Friday and as U.S. authorities dealt with a rash of alarms in the wake of this week's massacre at Virginia Tech university.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Lawyers called to the stand to back charges that former media magnate Conrad Black and his associates paid themselves illegal bonuses finished testifying on Friday, clearing the way for the highest profile witness yet to be called in the five-week-old trial.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Friday raised the possibility of charging rush-hour motorists new fees as part of a traffic-jam-fighting strategy and using the extra money to improve mass transit.

AP - The family of Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho told The Associated Press on Friday that they feel 'hopeless, helpless and lost,' and 'never could have envisioned that he was capable of so much violence.' 'He has made the world weep. We are living a nightmare,' said a statement issued by Cho's sister, Sun-Kyung Cho, on the family's behalf.

AP - Workers on Friday found the bodies of two miners trapped when a wall section collapsed in an open-pit coal mine in western Maryland, a federal mine official said.

AP - Arizona Republican Rep. Rick Renzi, whose wife's business was searched by the FBI on Thursday, says he will temporarily step down from the House Intelligence Committee.

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - Rescuers found the bodies of two miners on Friday, three days after they were buried under rock and mud when a wall collapsed at a surface coal mine in western Maryland, officials said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A database that included Social Security numbers and other private information for as many as 150,000 people who received loans and other funding from the Agriculture Department was accessible to the public, the U.S. government said on Friday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Ms. Foundation for Women, which launched 'Take Our Daughters to Work' day 15 years ago, will stop sponsoring the annual event after this year, declaring the program a success, the head of the women's group said on Friday.

AP - Many days, Andy Koch would return to his dorm to find suitemate Seung-Hui Cho standing in the hall, staring out a window that offered a sweeping view of neighboring West Ambler Johnston Hall.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pet food tainted with the chemical melamine was found in feed rations on a California hog farm and may show up on other U.S. farms, state and federal officials said on Friday.

DENVER (Reuters) - Security alerts on Friday forced the evacuation of schools in Colorado and California, the Arizona state Capitol and a NASA building in Houston where there was a fatal shooting incident as police confronted more alarms after this week's massacre at Virginia Tech.