AP - Robert Vassallo and Angellette Smith never meant to spend the holidays in Cuba.

AP - If you're a guy on a day hike in a national park in Utah, step carefully. You're among the most likely to need rescuing.

AP - Dozens of foreign species could spread across the Great Lakes in coming years despite policies designed to keep them out, causing significant environmental and economic damage, a federal report says.

AP - President Hugo Chavez will keep donating heating oil for poor American families in a costly decision that suggests the Venezuelan leader wants to keep to his pledges — and buttress his image — in spite of falling oil prices.

AP - The chances that a teenager will be cited for talking on a cell phone while driving are pretty much zero in Oregon, a consequence of the way the law is written and a problem other states may be facing.

AP - Ted Johnson planned on using a set of logs to a build a cabin in Alaska's interior. Instead he'll burn some of them to stay warm.

AP - More than a hundred firefighters spent the night battling a stubborn, wind-driven wildfire that triggered the evacuations of more than 900 homes as it scorched grasslands near Denver.

AP - Contending it's not a federal crime to violate the service terms of a Web site, a defense attorney has asked a judge to dismiss the conviction of a Missouri mother in a cruel Internet hoax on a 13-year-old girl who committed suicide.

AP - A Long Island surgeon embroiled in a nearly four-year divorce proceeding wants his estranged wife to return the kidney he donated to her, although he says he'll settle for $1.5 million in compensation.

AP - This time, somebody listened to prisoners' complaints over lousy jail food. A northern Alabama sheriff was in federal custody Thursday after a judge ruled he purposely fed inmates skimpy meals so he could make money from an unusual Alabama system that lets sheriffs turn a profit on their jail kitchens.

AP - Thousands of evacuated residents were allowed to return to their homes Thursday after firefighters took advantage of slowing winds overnight to partially contain a wildfire near Denver that destroyed two houses and several outbuildings.

AP - Missouri Sen. Kit Bond says he won't seek re-election in 2010.

AP - A lawyer for former Idaho Sen. Larry Craig says they won't ask the Minnesota Supreme Court to void Craig's conviction in an airport bathroom sex sting.

AP - An Alabama police sergeant accused of faking his abduction, stealing money and flying to Vegas won't contest a return back home to face charges.

AP - Georgia, Ohio and Minnesota are among the states that are part of a national salmonella outbreak that has sent at least a dozen people to the hospital and sickened nearly 400 people, officials said Thursday.

AP - A 64-year-old woman whose heart stopped beating and body temperature dropped to a dangerous 60 degrees after she was stuck in the cold for hours has survived — and her recovery amazed doctors.

AP - Republican Sen. Kit Bond announced Thursday that he will not seek re-election in 2010, saying he does not 'aspire to become Missouri's oldest senator.'

AP - A 17-year-old high school dropout shot, bludgeoned or stabbed to death four people over the Christmas holidays, three of them in the home of a jewelry merchant, police said Thursday.

AP - Former Idaho Sen. Larry Craig has reached the end of the road in his effort to reverse his conviction in an airport bathroom sex sting, one of his lawyers said Thursday.

AP - Floods, mudslides and avalanches in the Pacific Northwest kept tens of thousands of people from their homes Thursday, brought freight trains to a standstill and stranded hundreds of trucks along the major highways that link Seattle's busy ports with markets around the country.

AP - Gov. Rod Blagojevich's defense attorneys have asked a federal judge to throw U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald and all his assistants off the fraud and bribery case against him.

AP - A fugitive police sergeant said Thursday he won't contest being sent back to Alabama, where he's accused of faking his abduction, stealing evidence money and flying to Las Vegas to try to win enough money to pay off personal debts.

AP - An attorney for a woman convicted in a MySpace hoax directed at a teen who ended up committing suicide asked a judge to dismiss her convictions Thursday, saying a computer-fraud law was improperly used to prosecute her.

AP - With her Camelot pedigree and Park Avenue address, Caroline Kennedy is not exactly the average American woman. But many women identify with her impulse to enter the work force after two decades of child rearing.

AP - A quick-thinking woman put her lifeguard experience to good use, saving herself and her two small daughters after their car slid off a road into a deep, frigid pond.

AP - Think you know what time your mail arrives each day? Think again.

AP - Massachusetts health officials plan to follow the lead of New York City and California in requiring fast-food chains to post calorie counts for their products on boards behind the order counter.

AP - Heavy police presence greeted Bay Area Rapid Transit commuters Thursday, a day after more than 100 people were arrested in violent protests over the fatal shooting of an unarmed black man by a transit police officer.

AP - A federal judge has ordered the release of an Alabama sheriff he locked up after ruling that the sheriff purposely fed jail inmates skimpy meals so he could profit from state funds.

AP - An appeals court has ruled that the federal government cannot hold sex offenders in custody beyond the end of their prison sentences.

AP - Roland Burris has erected a grand mausoleum for himself, carved with the words 'TRAIL BLAZER' and a long list of his accomplishments, with a space left for his more recent achievements. That gap could soon be filled in with 'U.S. Senator.'

AP - Police who searched dumps in three states for the remains of a baby thrown out in a Jersey City hospital's trash gave up Thursday, saying they had little chance of success.

AP - A former O.J. Simpson co-defendant who was given probation after testifying against the fallen football star has been jailed and could be sent to state prison for failing a drug test, his lawyer said Thursday.

AP - Several media organizations on Thursday joined a Nebraska historical society's fight to obtain the names of 957 people buried in unmarked graves at a former psychiatric hospital cemetery.

AP - A sheriff said Thursday afternoon he is '99.9 percent sure' human remains found in a wooded area in northern South Carolina are a missing nurse.

AP - A key panel unanimously recommended Thursday that Gov.

AP - Thousands of evacuated residents, including former FEMA chief Michael D. Brown, were allowed to return to their homes Thursday after firefighters partially contained a wildfire near Denver that destroyed two houses and several outbuildings.

AP - An Alabama sheriff who made $212,000 in the last three years by feeding inmates what a judge said were skimpy portions was released from prison Thursday after submitting a plan pledging to feed them better.

AP - A nationwide salmonella outbreak that has struck 42 states has put about one in five of its victims in the hospital, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday.

AP - Gov. David Paterson said for the first time Thursday that Caroline Kennedy's lack of legislative experience is a 'minus' to her qualifications as a possible appointee to the U.S. Senate.

AP - A teenager who authorities say was plotting to 'shoot up' a North Carolina high school is in custody because of a tip from a teen who chatted with the suspect online, investigators said Thursday.

AP - Episcopal leaders in Pittsburgh went to court Thursday seeking to recover $20 million in assets they believe were wrongfully taken when the conservative branches split from the liberal diocese in October.

AP - A California appeals court has tossed out a lawsuit filed by anti-tax groups that sought to block a package of tax increases passed by Democrats in the state Legislature.

AP - A boy whose disappearance went unreported for 10 years was once taken away from his adoptive parents, then returned days later, Kansas' social services agency said Thursday.

AP - A federal judge on Thursday delayed the trial of jailed evangelist Tony Alamo on charges he took young girls across state lines for sex.

AP - A moderate earthquake struck Thursday night in San Bernardino, with shaking felt from Los Angeles 55 miles to the west and south to Orange County. No immediate reports of damage or injuries were reported.

AP - A half-acre plaza that has stood for the goodwill between Mexico and the United States is closing to make way for a triple fence along the U.S. southern border, the California State Parks Department confirmed Thursday.