AP - Thousands of evacuated residents, including former FEMA chief Michael D. Brown, began returning to their homes Thursday after firefighters gained control over a wildfire near Denver that destroyed two houses and several outbuildings.

AP - A moderate earthquake rattled much of Southern California on Thursday, with shaking felt from north of Los Angeles down to the Mexican border. No damage or injuries were reported.

AP - Roland Burris raised his right hand in a committee room at the Illinois Capitol, swearing to tell a room full of lawmakers the truth about his appointment by embattled Gov. Rod Blagojevich to the state's vacant U.S. Senate seat.

AP - Run for your lives ... Yellowstone's going to explode!

AP - Supporters of the ballot measure that banned gay marriage in California have filed a lawsuit seeking to block their campaign finance records from public view, saying the reports have led to the harassment of donors.

AP - Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel's lawyers have filed a new appeal of his murder conviction, claiming that police and prosecutors failed to provide them with evidence that pointed to another suspect and discredited a key state witness.

AP - Two small earthquakes rumbled along California's border with Mexico, just hours after a larger quake rattled much of the southern part of the state.

AP - Immigrant rights advocates expressed outrage over two new rules going into effect in the waning days of the Bush administration, one affecting how immigrants are represented in deportation cases and another mandating DNA tests for detained immigrants.

AP - President-elect Barack Obama says he still thinks there needs to be a playoff system for determining the country's college football champion.

AP - An explosion at a southern Indiana wood laminate plant Friday sent eight workers to a hospital with injuries, collapsed walls and set dust on fire, authorities said.

AP - President-elect Barack Obama is completing his national security team by announcing his unusual choices for CIA director and a national intelligence director who may face tough Senate confirmation questioning over how he confronted the Indonesian military when civilian massacres were occurring in East Timor.

AP - A waste pond at a coal-burning power plant in northeast Alabama ruptured Friday, but the spill was quickly contained, utility officials said. It was the second breach at a Tennessee Valley Authority facility in less than a month.

AP - Gov. Rod Blagojevich was out jogging in Chicago as lawmakers in Springfield voted to impeach him. Upon returning from his jog, he likened his situation to long-distance running.

AP - Federal prosecutors have dropped criminal charges against former Reagan budget director David Stockman.

AP - An Alabama sheriff imprisoned after admitting he legally pocketed about $210,000 from his jail kitchen while providing skimpy meals to inmates agreed to give up future profits from the operation, a judge said Friday.

AP - Congressional auditors say that NASA's in-house financial watchdog is doing little to unearth waste and abuse at the space agency.

AP - Mayor Sheila Dixon was indicted Friday on charges that she accepted illegal gifts during her time as mayor and City Council president, including travel, fur coats and gift cards that she allegedly used for a holiday shopping spree.

AP - The Illinois Supreme Court said Friday that Secretary of State Jesse White's signature isn't required to validate Roland Burris' appointment to the U.S. Senate, lobbing the question of seating him back to Democratic leaders in Washington.

AP - Since Hurricane Katrina, the beer-soaked, urine-splashed, puke-puddled French Quarter of old has been scrubbed clean. But with the city facing tough financial times, it may no longer be able to afford to pay for all the services of an army of sanitation workers who pick up after the partying.

AP - The National Organization for Women is outraged over the swearing-in of a New York state senator facing charges of slashing his girlfriend's face with a piece of broken glass.

AP - A federal appeals court has ordered the writings of Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski (KA-zin-SKEE) be sold online.

AP - Dry weather in the Pacific Northwest has given officials hope that they can reopen closed freeways and rail lines by Friday evening.

AP - A Boston Fire Department ladder truck coming down a hill plowed through an intersection Friday and crashed into a high-rise apartment building, killing one firefighter and injuring several other people.

AP - A South Carolina pawn shop owner accused by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg of recklessly selling a rifle to an ex-convict pleaded guilty Friday to a federal weapons charge.

AP - Behind the latest unemployment figures showing another 500,000-plus Americans lost their jobs is a sad truth: The deeper the recession becomes, the more it touches people whose livelihoods have never been threatened by dark financial times.

AP - A retention pond at a Tennessee Valley Authority coal-burning power plant leaked waste into a northeast Alabama creek Friday, putting more pressure on utility officials who are already trying to clean up a major coal ash spill from last month in Tennessee.

AP - State officials began reopening Washington's major highways on Friday as floodwaters receded and road crews plowed away mud, snow and debris. But flooding continued on some major rivers, and residents of some low-lying areas were only beginning to tackle the cleanup of their sodden homes.

AP - A blond girl heads from a playground into a women's restroom. A scruffy man, lurking outside, darts in behind her. 'Your City Commission Made This Legal,' the words on the TV screen read.

AP - U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin says Roland Burris won't be accepted as President-elect Barack Obama's replacement in Senate without the Illinois secretary of state's signature.

AP - An eastern Virginia couple arrested after their 6-year-old son crashed the family car while trying to drive himself to school appeared in court Friday on child-endangerment charges.

AP - A longtime secretary listed as a potential defense witness in the ongoing corruption trial of ex-state Sen. Vincent Fumo admitted that she pocketed $63,000 in state funds by padding Fumo's restaurant expenses.

AP - Charles McArthur Emmanuel, the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor and head of a savage paramilitary unit known as the 'Demon Forces,' was sentenced Friday to 97 years in prison for torture overseas in the first U.S. case of its kind.

AP - Democratic Party leaders across New York say Gov. David Paterson has kept them out of the loop in his process to pick Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's successor — and that's just fine with them.

AP - A retention pond at a Tennessee Valley Authority coal-burning power plant leaked waste into a northeast Alabama creek Friday, ramping up pressure on the utility that already is trying to clean up last month's major coal ash spill at a plant in Tennessee.

AP - Women's groups are outraged that a freshman New York state senator was sworn in this week while facing charges that he slashed his girlfriend's face with a piece of broken glass in a jealous rage.

AP - A motorist with 30 handguns, seven rifles and fully loaded ammunition magazines in his pickup truck has been arrested at Los Angeles International Airport.

AP - Authorities say five people have been sent to hospitals after a reported shooting at a high school on the city's South Side.

AP - The videotaped killing of an unarmed black man by a transit police officer here has inflamed long-running tensions between police and many African-American residents.

AP - U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin said Friday that Roland Burris should not be seated in the U.S. Senate because he has failed to get the secretary of state's signature on his appointment to replace President-elect Barack Obama in the chamber.

AP - The head of the federal government's public health agency is stepping down, according an e-mail sent Friday night to federal employees.

AP - A married man accused of killing his mistress and dumping her dismembered body in a Staten Island pond has been charged with first-degree murder.