AP - The Southern California woman who gave birth to octuplets this week has six other children and never expected to have eight more when she took fertility treatment, her mother 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. The man said the threat against Obama was a prank.

AP - An Illinois family is sowing support for a White House farmer with a Web site allowing people to nominate and vote for their favorite growers.

AP - Since being laid off when Circuit City closed the store where he worked, Vincent Self heads to the public library every chance he gets to search for a job.

AP - Republicans are looking for a national party chairman to lead a GOP rebirth after losing control of Congress and the White House in back-to-back elections.

AP - Chief Warrant Officer James Brad Smith broke five ribs, punctured a lung and shattered bones in his hand and thigh after falling more than 20 feet from a Black Hawk helicopter in Baghdad last month.

AP - A letter that ex-CIA spy Harold Nicholson sent his girlfriend from prison contained a line about his youngest son that may be prophetic — 'Nathan is exactly like I am.'

AP - Now that Rod Blagojevich's scandal-ridden tenure as governor is over, Gov. Pat Quinn said Friday he's ready to get to work and 'mend the flaws' in state government.

AP - Monica Caison figured it was worth a shot, so she fired off a letter, a single paragraph, to the man on death row for kidnapping and killing Alice Donovan during a two-week, 2,300-mile crime spree.

AP - A judge on Friday denied a motion from Casey Anthony's defense attorneys to remove prosecutors from her murder trial but ruled that the defense team can inspect woods where the remains of her slain toddler were found.

AP - Gov. Pat Quinn is moving quickly to put his predecessor's scandal-ridden tenure behind him, saying he's ready to 'fumigate state government.'

AP - The government acknowledged Friday that a shipment of peanuts from the plant linked to a salmonella outbreak contained a 'filthy, putrid or decomposed substance' later identified as metal fragments. The shipment was returned to the U.S. in April, months earlier than reflected in a federal tracking database.

AP - Gov. Pat Quinn moved quickly Friday to put Rod Blagojevich's scandal-ridden tenure behind him, signing his first executive order and saying he wants to 'fumigate state government.'

AP - Pleurocoelus has served ably as the official dinosaur of Texas. Sure, it was a plant-noshing herbivore in a fiercely barbecue-proud state, but the sauropod dwarfed most other dinos and lumbered with a 20-ton swagger.

AP - Like callers dialing 911 and getting no answer, boaters could end up stranded — or worse — if they haven't upgraded their emergency distress beacons by this weekend. But the improved technology will speed rescues and spare agencies from many false alarms.

AP - Utility crews made some progress Friday in restoring power to the more than 1.3 million homes and businesses darkened by an ice storm that crippled states from Missouri to West Virginia, but thousands were still bunking in toasty shelters because their homes had no water or heat.

AP - A man sentenced to life in prison for killing a woman in 1984 had his conviction overturned and was released Friday on a personal recognizance bond after spending 23 years behind bars.

AP - The lawyer for a former transit officer who shot and killed an unarmed man in Northern California says his client might have mistakenly pulled his service pistol instead of a stun gun.

AP - A judge on Friday denied a motion from Casey Anthony's defense attorneys to remove prosecutors from her murder trial but ruled that the defense team can inspect woods where the remains of her slain toddler were found. Casey Anthony is charged with killing her daughter, Caylee, who was 2 when she disappeared last summer.

AP - Kay Yow didn't ask one of her famous friends to speak at her funeral. Instead, the longtime North Carolina State women's basketball coach had a message for them.

AP - In some parts of rural Kentucky, they're getting water the old-fashioned way — with pails from a creek. There's not room for one more sleeping bag on the shelter floor. The creative are flushing their toilets with melted snow.

AP - Authorities say a Lake Champlain ferry has crashed at a dock on the Vermont shore and injuries have been reported.

AP - A woman who says she was deceived and abandoned by her angry friends in the woods of northern New Jersey on a frigid night bears scars both physical and emotional from her ordeal, her lawyer said Friday.

AP - Despite drawing repeated comparisons to the house arrest of Bernard Madoff, attorneys for a Florida hedge fund manager accused of losing millions of dollars in client investments were unable to persuade a judge Friday to offer him similar confinement as he awaits trial on federal securities and wire fraud.

AP - A woman who became engaged to a former suburban Chicago police sergeant suspected in his wife's 2007 disappearance moved out of his home Friday, hours after he spoke about his current and past relationships on a national television show.

AP - A Lake Champlain ferry crashed into the pilings near its dock on the Vermont shore Friday, injuring at least three people.

AP - In a courtroom where victims denounced him and still-devoted parishioners embraced him, a former Roman Catholic priest was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for molesting a boy in the late 1980s.

AP - Advocates for missing children want Texas' Department of Public Safety to reconsider its policy of issuing Amber Alerts after the agency refused to send one out for a missing 11-year-old girl believed to have run off with a convicted felon.