AP - Each week for nearly 30 years, Bob Chimento and his college buddies have gathered around tables in a Mount Pleasant home to play the popular version of poker known as Texas Hold 'em, bringing $20 and spending an evening with pizza, sodas and beer.

AP - An inmate fighting execution for killing his mother in a crack cocaine-induced rage has an unusual group of allies: his aunt and uncles, the siblings of the slain woman, as well as her late mother.

AP - Andy Cardinale recalls with affection the day one of his horses gently deposited his son on a snow bank when the animal was tired of being ridden, or the smile on his handicapped wife's face as she watched the animals graze.

AP - Louisiana crawfish farmers hope to meet demand for Mardi Gras with production down after last summer's hurricanes and some farmers opting to plant higher-priced crops rather than flood crawfish ponds.

AP - Faced with more beaches closures, depleted shellfish beds and sharply reduced commercial fisheries, New York is poised to act against a rising tide of unhealthy coastal waters.

AP - Larry Whitfield was on foot, his getaway car wrecked, his rookie attempt at robbing a bank thwarted by a set of locked doors, according to detectives. Looking for a place to hide, police say, he found himself inside the home of a frightened old woman.

AP - Adrienne Purcella's life has changed a lot in the past year: She got a job as a police officer and officially entered a domestic partnership with Libby Cope.

AP - Reputed mob boss Frank Calabrese Sr., one of five men convicted at Chicago's biggest underworld trial in decades, was sentenced to life in prison by a judge who described the murders he was accused of as 'unspeakable.'

AP - A newspaper says it took three calls to Detroit authorities over two days before they recovered the body of a man frozen in ice in the elevator shaft of a vacant warehouse.

AP - Police say a couple and their two children found dead in a suburban Columbus home are likely the victims of a murder-suicide.

AP - Gov. Rod Blagojevich's own words prove 'a pattern of abuse of power,' the prosecutor at his impeachment trial insisted Thursday, as the embattled Democrat arrived at the state Capitol insisting he hasn't given up hope.

AP - Mount Redoubt, a volcano 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, is rumbling and simmering, prompting geologists to warn that an eruption may be imminent.

AP - Cardinal Roger M. Mahony said Thursday he was 'mystified and puzzled' by a federal grand jury investigation into the handling of alleged clergy child molestation cases by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

AP - A couple from Oklahoma that moved to Montana's rugged mountains for a cheap place to live apparently got caught off guard by a snowstorm, with the woman freezing to death in their remote cabin.

AP - A family of four was found shot to death in a suburban Columbus home, victims of an apparent murder-suicide committed by the father, police said Thursday.

AP - A Colorado man has been indicted on charges of threatening to kill President Barack Obama and blow up the Mall of America in suburban Minneapolis.

AP - An attorney for Al Franken is painting Norm Coleman as an opportunist fishing for votes in his effort to bring more disputed absentee ballots into their Senate race.

AP - In an abandoned warehouse, the image was stark and shocking: two denim-clad, lifeless legs poking up through trash-choked ice.

AP - A federal probe into a deadly salmonella outbreak has exposed a dirty secret: Food producers in most states are not required to alert health regulators if internal tests show possible contamination at their plants.

AP - A federal judge has denied a request to keep secret the names of donors to California's anti-gay marriage initiative.

AP - Free after more than two weeks in federal immigration custody but still under a deportation order, a mother of six said Thursday she has no home other than the United States because she is a Palestinian without a home country.

AP - Storm-battered residents of several states hunkered down in frigid homes and shelters Thursday, expecting to spend at least a week without power and waiting in long lines to buy generators, firewood, groceries and bottled water.

AP - The sister of a girl who was allegedly molested and impregnated four times by their father says she waited until she turned 18 to come forward because she was afraid of being placed in state custody.

AP - A 15-year-old driver and two younger boys were killed when they fled at speeds up to 90 mph and then crashed into a house after a police car pulled them over.

AP - A cold-blooded assassin pumped four bullets into the head of a man who ignored an invitation by infamous mob boss John Gotti to a social club, a federal prosecutor said Thursday.

AP - Ousted Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was schooled in the politics of the Chicago Machine, but his successor's career has been built on grass-roots organizing to cut government and protect the little guy.

AP - In the first major census of people living on the streets since the recession, thousands of volunteers across the country are fanning out in the thick of night this week to count the most desperate members of their communities.

AP - An angry Chicago Police superintendent vowed Thursday to find out how a 14-year-old boy allegedly impersonated a police officer and even went on patrol for several hours last weekend.

AP - Try this in high school or at the mall, and you'd have an all-out brawl.

AP - A lab company president called to testify before Congress in the salmonella outbreak investigation said Thursday that manufacturers 'can't retest away a positive result.'

AP - People across Illinois who watched former Gov. Rod Blagojevich get the boot Thursday said they hoped removal of the scandal-plagued governor helps the state begin rebuilding its image after weeks of ridicule.

AP - A federal prosecutor with a penchant for applying the law creatively is taking on the nation's largest Roman Catholic Archdiocese in a child molestation case that could break ground for prosecuting high-ranking church officials.

AP - A suburban Cincinnati man convicted of sexually touching children while claiming to be a market researcher who wanted to measure their underwear has been sentenced to 44 years in prison.

AP - A violent prison gang member was put to death Thursday for fatally injecting a fellow prisoner with an overdose of heroin more than 11 years ago.

AP - When Gaylord Johnson Jr. was struggling with a term paper at Phillips Academy in Andover, Mass., he figured he'd ask for help from someone who knew the material best: Ernest Hemingway.

AP - A college student who managed the prostitution ring that brought down former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer was sentenced to six months in prison Thursday.