AP - In Big Sky country, there's no limit on strong opinions about Democratic Sen. Max Baucus and his struggle to fulfill President Barack Obama's goal of health care overhaul.

AP - Tired of taking pills prescribed to suppress his pain, Zach Choate decided to wrestle head-on with the trauma that followed him home from Iraq. He began by using a razor to shred his Army uniform to bits.

AP - A priest's typical mission is saving souls, but the Rev. John Lasseigne has a more down-to-earth goal — saving homes.

AP - A jury handed federal prosecutors a victory in finding an ex-congressman guilty of bribery, racketeering and other charges, four months after a corruption conviction against former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens was tossed aside in an embarrassing blow to the Justice Department.

AP - The turtles at this waterfront hospital have been hit by boat propellers, caught in fishing nets, attacked by sharks, stricken with tumors and lost flippers.

AP - South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford is heading back to work after a European vacation with his family as he tries to patch things up after admitting an affair with an Argentine woman.

AP - The family of two men killed in the 'wrong-way crash' on New York's Taconic State Parkway say they'll use the tragedy to campaign against drunken driving.

AP - The former mistress of John Edwards arrived at a federal courthouse in Raleigh where a grand jury was meeting Thursday — an appearance that comes as federal investigators examine the two-time presidential candidate's finances.

AP - Investigators are suggesting they may learn much more from relatives of a driver who was drunk on vodka and high on marijuana when she killed herself and seven others in a wrong-way crash on a suburban parkway.

AP - The government's first study of how well rapid tests diagnose swine flu finds they're wrong at least half the time.

AP - The former mistress of John Edwards arrived at a federal courthouse in Raleigh where a grand jury was meeting Thursday — an appearance that comes as federal investigators examine the two-time presidential candidate's finances.

AP - Two Washington Post journalists are apologizing and their satirical online video series has been canceled following criticism of a joke they told about Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

AP - City officials want to dismiss a public lewdness charge against an 81-year-old woman accused of urinating in a public park when she couldn't make it to a bathroom.

AP - From the goose that laid the golden egg to the race between the tortoise and the hare, Aesop's fables are known for teaching moral lessons rather than literally being true. But a new study says at least one such tale might really have happened.

AP - Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine on Thursday ordered freedom for three of four former sailors convicted of raping and killing another sailor's wife in 1997.

AP - Six of the seven North Carolina terrorism suspects have been transferred to a jail in Virginia.

AP - The Atlantic hurricane season will be less active than originally predicted, government forecasters said Thursday after the first two months of the half-year stretch passed without any named storms developing.

AP - A prosecutor has dropped charges against an Ohio teenager accused of fatally shooting his identical twin.

AP - The National Civil Rights Museum has chosen the Dalai Lama as the recipient of the International Freedom Award.

AP - Philadelphia police officers involved in the videotaped beating of three suspects after a car chase won't be charged with crimes, according to a grand jury that found no excessive use of force.

AP - The Army National Guard is warning 131,000 soldiers to take steps to protect themselves from identity theft after a laptop containing their personal information was stolen.

AP - Hurricane Felicia is still a Category 4 storm far out in the Pacific, but it's expected to weaken.

AP - A man who prosecutors say was tied up, humiliated and assaulted by four women as payback for his cheating ways was accused Thursday of hitting his daughter and stealing the ashes of his estranged wife's dead father.

AP - Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine on Thursday ordered freedom for three of four former sailors convicted of raping and killing another sailor's wife in 1997.

AP - A prosecutor dropped charges Thursday against an Ohio man accused of fatally shooting his identical twin after tests cast doubt on the key piece of evidence — a palm print of the defendant's that was believed to have been cast in blood.

AP - Before opening fire on an aerobics class, George Sodini wrote about feeling lonely and rejected — yet those very characteristics gave him the company of other mass killers whose isolation helped create a murderous cocktail.

AP - Aerosmith's Steven Tyler suffered head, neck and shoulder injuries in a tumble from the stage at a South Dakota show, a concert spokesman said Thursday, and the audience thought it was part of his hipshaking act until he didn't get up.

AP - Sonia Sotomayor bathed in applause from friends and colleagues at a federal courthouse in lower Manhattan Thursday as the Senate voted to confirm her appointment to the Supreme Court.

AP - Like most restaurants, the Burger King in this St. Louis suburb has a no shoes, no shirt, no service policy.

AP - An Indiana man was charged with murder Thursday in the fatal shooting of a Pillsbury plant co-worker after allegedly crashing his car through the plant's security gate.

AP - She couldn't have been drunk and stoned. Her husband had never seen her intoxicated before. And there were absolutely no marital problems that could have sent her over the edge.

AP - Three men convicted in the rape and murder of a fellow sailor's wife more than a decade ago will walk free to the outrage of the victim's family — who blamed the decision on political pressure from novelist John Grisham — and the men's supporters, who want them declared innnocent.

AP - Aerosmith's Steven Tyler suffered head, neck and shoulder injuries in a tumble from the stage at a South Dakota show, a concert spokesman said Thursday, and the audience thought it was part of his hip-shaking act until he didn't get up.

AP - A feud between the state and the mayor of this northern New Jersey town over whether he should resign as he faces corruption charges spawned dueling citizen protests outside his home Tuesday evening.

AP - A 121-year-old newspaper and an upstart rival published by its former employees have settled a federal lawsuit, ending an unusual battle over newspaper cutbacks.

AP - A 13-year-old girl arrested for shoplifting was held in the Dallas County Jail for nearly two weeks before it was determined that she is underage, a police sergeant said Thursday.

AP - Laura Ling's sister says the two American journalists briefly touched North Korean soil before they were captured and detained for months in that communist country.

AP - Four workers accused of digging up corpses at a historic Chicago-area cemetery as part of a scheme to resell plots have been indicted on a host of felony charges, including desecration of human remains, conspiracy to dismember human bodies and theft, prosecutors said Thursday.

AP - Two Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission agents who took part in a June police raid on a gay bar failed to report they used force when arresting a patron or that he suffered a serious head injury, according to a report released Thursday.