AP - It was easy banter about which route the pilot of a Piper airplane would take through the busy airspace over New York's Hudson River. The air traffic controller at Teterboro Airport gave him two choices: Head down the river, or take a southwest tack.

AP - Cruise down the tree-lined streets of the Old Oaks neighborhood on a summer evening and know this: Someone is watching you.

AP - A weekend riot at an overcrowded California prison that injured 175 has come at a critical time for the state's prisons.

AP - What should have been a 2 1/2-hour trip from Houston to Minneapolis had moved into its ninth hour, and the 47 passengers on board had burned through the free pretzels and drinks handed out early in their Friday night flight from Houston.

AP - The jury in the second-degree murder trial of rapper Corey 'C-Murder' Miller plans to continue deliberations.

AP - It's an eerie underwater world that few people will ever see — an unforgiving morass of mud, rocks and collapsed pilings from old piers.

AP - Cars and light trucks sold in July got more miles per gallon than those sold in previous months, say researchers, who credit the Cash for Clunkers program.

AP - A Fort Bliss soldier and two other men have been charged in the shooting death of a mid-level Mexican drug cartel member who was also a U.S. informant.

AP - The mayor of Birmingham is issuing a blanket pardon for thousands of people who were arrested in the Alabama city during civil rights protests in the 1960s.

AP - Energy prices slumped Tuesday on a Labor Department report that suggested consumer spending, a major economic driver, may be depressed for some time as companies cut back.

AP - Forecasters say Felicia has been downgraded to a tropical depression over the Pacific.

AP - South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford says his use of state planes for personal trips is no different than what governors before him did.

AP - A federal judge in Boston on Tuesday denied additional hair-removal treatments for a murderer who is seeking a taxpayer-funded sex-change operation, saying the inmate has failed to prove she will suffer 'serious harm' without further electrolysis.

AP - In a neighborhood served by 26 liquor stores but only one grocery, a community group is peddling fresh fruits and vegetables like ice cream.

AP - More than 100 soldiers in the brigade studied Arabic for 10 months. Their officers boned up on Iraq by reading dozens of books.

AP - Suspended Cleveland Browns wide receiver Donte' Stallworth will be allowed to leave home confinement to train with a strength and conditioning coach, a judge ruled Tuesday.

AP - U.S. officials handed $2.4 million in proceeds from stolen oil products to Mexican authorities as part of a case against a Houston importer.

AP - A 60-year-old man has been convicted of groping a woman in a Minnie Mouse costume at Walt Disney World.

AP - South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford on Tuesday justified his use of state planes for personal trips in which he often brought along his wife and four sons, saying his taxpayer-funded travel was no different than that of his predecessors.

AP - Carlos and Jennifer Salazar had piled their five children into their pickup truck and were headed to a Pee Wee football kickoff carnival when a speeding car came out nowhere.

AP - Rapper Corey 'C-Murder' Miller was convicted Tuesday of second-degree murder for the 2002 shooting of a fan at a nightclub, capping tumultuous jury deliberations at his second trial in the killing.

AP - An 18-year-old U.S. Army soldier was the triggerman in a paid hit on a Mexican drug cartel figure who was also an informant for the U.S. drug enforcement agency, police said Tuesday in announcing the arrests of the soldier and two alleged coconspirators.

AP - U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat who has been under fire for being a less-than-enthusiastic backer of the Obama administration's health care reform plans, has launched an ad campaign to counter criticism.

AP - A passion for gambling shared by two once-inseparable octogenarian sisters has ended up dividing them, with the Connecticut Supreme Court ruling that one can sue the other for a share of a winning $500,000 lottery ticket.

AP - Three American hikers detained in Iran for nearly two weeks entered the country by mistake and their families are hoping for a quick resolution that will reunite them with their children, the families said in a statement Tuesday.

AP - New York police divers and crews from the Army Corps of Engineers worked together Tuesday afternoon on efforts to recover the last two victims of a plane-helicopter collision that killed nine people.

AP - Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales says a criminal investigation into whether CIA interrogations after 9/11 crossed legal lines could have a chilling effect on U.S. anti-terrorism efforts.

AP - The boss of a Colombian cocaine cartel that smuggled some $10 billion worth of cocaine into the U.S. pleaded guilty Tuesday to drug charges that will send him to prison for at least 10 years.

AP - Leona Helmsley's dog, Trouble, may be living quietly enough in Florida, but there's a lot of barking about the way the late hotel queen's millions are being given away.

AP - Nearly three months after a boat overloaded with Haitian migrants capsized off South Florida's coast, the body of the youngest drowning victim lies unclaimed in a morgue.

AP - A 5-year-old boy who survived a wrong-way crash that killed eight people, including his mother, sister and three cousins, has been released from the hospital.

AP - Descendants of two of the country's most influential evangelical leaders — Billy Graham and the late D. James Kennedy — are feuding over control of a Florida megachurch that is a bedrock of the religious right.

AP - A former head of the Florida Sheriffs' Association has been sentenced to nearly six years in federal prison in a money laundering and corruption case.

AP - Police say a 6-year-old boy rescued a 2-year-old girl from a fire at a Long Island house where three adults later were found dead.

AP - A man accused of hiring a U.S. Army soldier and another man to kill a Mexican drug cartel lieutenant who was cooperating with U.S. authorities was himself a government informant, a police official said Tuesday.

AP - The riot that ravaged a Southern California prison and injured 175 inmates began with a fight between black and Hispanic gang members, a stark reminder of the difficulty of race relations behind bars and the challenges of desegregating inmates.

AP - New York police say the last two bodies have been pulled from the wreckage of a collision between a small plane and a sightseeing helicopter over the Hudson River.

AP - A long-simmering feud between a 13-year-old girl and her step-grandfather erupted after the man allegedly poured her milk down the drain, prompting the girl to fatally stab him in the neck, court documents said.

AP - Artists looking for somewhere to display their work now have a chance to be seen at one of the city's most high-profile places — the World Trade Center site.

AP - The former chief financial officer for Bernard Madoff pleaded guilty Tuesday to conspiracy, admitting he helped Madoff carry out a massive fraud that cost thousands of people billions of dollars by lying to investors and testifying falsely when it seemed the fraud might be discovered.

AP - Federal prosecutors say they have complied with a court order handing over trial evidence to two former Alaska lawmakers convicted on corruption charges.

AP - Michael Vick told basketball campers at Hampton University on Tuesday to use his own story as an example as they work to follow their dreams.

AP - Former U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday he wishes he could 'do some things over' from his years with the Bush administration, citing a memo he wrote that human rights groups contended led to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq.

AP - Buzzing through some of the world's busiest airspace, New York's sightseeing helicopters give tourists a bird's-eye view of the Manhattan skyline and the Statue of Liberty.

AP - A Mexican woman who served two decades in prison after being convicted of conspiring to kill a man authorities later said raped and tormented her has obtained a green card to remain in this country.

AP - The suspects who robbed and killed a Florida couple in July made off with a safe that contained few valuables, but missed a second safe that held $164,000 in cash, a lawyer for the victims' family acknowledged Tuesday.

AP - DVD copying software sold by RealNetworks Inc. appears to be an illegal pirating tool, a federal judge ruled Tuesday in a legal battle that's been closely watched in Hollywood and elsewhere.

AP - Police say a 6-year-old boy rescued his 2-year-old sister from a fire at a Long Island house where three adults later were found dead.

AP - Authorities say someone fired a shotgun at a toll booth near a heavily traveled bridge north of San Francisco, killing a toll collector and one other person and leaving a gruesome scene that has snarled evening commuter traffic.