AP - A stranger followed a woman into a New York City bar restroom after she rejected his advances early Thursday, savagely beat her in a toilet stall and perhaps tried to sexually assault her, police said.

AP - A settlement that could pay up to $657.5 million to more than 10,000 ground zero rescue and recovery workers sickened by dust from the destroyed World Trade Center goes before a judge Friday, and he has said he favored a settlement but planned to analyze it carefully to make sure it was fair.

AP - Sharif Mobley had strong Muslim views as early as high school. But his old friend Roman Castro knew he had radicalized when he saw him about four years ago.

AP - An 18-year-old lesbian student who wanted to take her girlfriend to her senior prom is asking a federal judge to force her Mississippi school district reinstate the dance it canceled rather than let the couple attend.

AP - In recusing himself after two weeks of investigating Gov. David Paterson, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said there was no 'technical conflict' but described the probe thus far as preliminary and bowed to pressure that included sinking approval ratings for the man widely expected to run for governor.

AP - Utah's House majority leader said Thursday he paid a woman $150,000 to keep silent about going 'hot-tubbing' with her when she was minor a quarter century ago.

AP - A former aide to John Edwards is returning to court just days after a North Carolina judge nearly sent him to jail over his handling of a videotape purportedly showing the two-time presidential candidate in a sexual encounter.

AP - The knives at the slaughterhouse weren't properly sanitized, a government investigator said, and employees at the meatpacking plant didn't know how to test the carcasses of days-old veal calves for a dangerous pathogen. Food safety conditions were so poor at the Vermont processing facility that it should close before someone got sick, officials warned.

AP - A real brouhaha has beer lovers in the City of Brotherly love frothing over with anger.

AP - Security video has attracted some tips, but none so far have led police to the stranger who followed a woman into a bar restroom, savagely beating her and perhaps trying to sexually assault her after she rejected his advances.

AP - Lawyers and city officials expressed confidence Friday that they can get ground zero responders to agree to a settlement that would pay up to $657 million to workers who developed health problems after toiling in the ruins of the World Trade Center.

AP - Before he was rounded up in a sweep of suspected al-Qaida terrorists in Yemen, Sharif Mobley was a laborer at five nuclear plant complexes in Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

AP - The man accused of shooting and wounding two students at a Colorado middle school told investigators he was hearing voices after his arrest and was trying to fend off 'transforming forces' from his body, according to an arrest affidavit released Friday.

AP - The Illinois Democrat running for President Barack Obama's old Senate seat faced a new political hassle after one of his major campaign contributors was arrested on charges of defrauding banks by writing bad checks.

AP - At least four incendiary devices have been found recently in mailboxes or postal processing facilities in eastern Texas, although none posed a danger to the public, authorities said.

AP - The Texas State Board of Education preliminarily adopted new social studies standards Friday after days of heated debate marked by race and politics, shaping what teachers will be required to cover in social studies, history and economics classes for millions of students for the next decade.

AP - For five months, Virginia carpenter Steve Williams lived with a secret worth millions.

AP - A late-night confession by Utah's House majority leader about sitting nude in a hot tub with a minor 25 years ago has shocked this conservative state's political establishment.

AP - An American seized in Yemen in a sweep of suspected al-Qaida members had been a laborer at six U.S. nuclear power plants, and authorities are investigating whether he had access to sensitive information or materials that would be useful to terrorists.

AP - Too much cancer screening, too many heart tests, too many cesarean sections. A spate of recent reports suggests that many Americans are being overtreated. Maybe even President Barack Obama, champion of an overhaul and cost-cutting of the health care system.

AP - Investigators are confronted with a series of nagging questions as they try to unravel the case of a California real estate agent who said his Toyota Prius turned into a runaway death trap after the gas pedal became stuck.

AP - In the years after the 9/11 terror attacks, 10,000 people who helped clear mountains of debris from Lower Manhattan filed lawsuits blaming New York City for failing to protect them from the toxic dust.

AP - A former aide to John Edwards avoided jail again Friday in a dispute over a tape that allegedly shows the past presidential candidate and his lover in a sexual encounter.

AP - Police in New York say they have a man in custody suspected of brutally beating a woman in a bar restroom after she rejected his advances.

AP - Thousands of New York City taxi drivers overcharged passengers by more than $8.3 million over the past two years by setting their meters at a rate that was supposed to be used for trips to the suburbs, the Taxi and Limousine Commission said Friday.

AP - A construction worker from Pennsylvania was charged Friday with brutally beating and attempting to rape a woman in a restroom at a New York City bar after she rejected his advances.