AP - Potent winter storms caused dozens of vehicle crashes with injuries in Colorado and Washington state Wednesday, prompting the closure of two major highways in both states.

AP - A black man who took hostages in a bar and told the patrons that 'white people are going to burn tonight' was convicted Thursday of attempted murder, assault and other crimes.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tyson Fresh Meats, a Wallula, Washington unit of Tyson Foods Inc., is voluntarily recalling about 16,743 pounds (7.6 tons) of ground beef that may be contaminated with E.coli, the USDA said on Friday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rafael Marquez captured the World Boxing Council super bantamweight title on Saturday when holder Israel Vazquez quit on his stool before the start of the eighth round due to breathing difficulties from a broken nose.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Childhood obesity in the United States appears to be causing girls to reach puberty at an earlier age, for reasons that are not clear, a study said on Monday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government should require clearer disclosure of hidden fees that erode the investment returns of millions of Americans' 401(k) retirement plans, said a senior lawmaker and pension experts on Tuesday.

BOSTON, March 6 (Reuters Life!) - More than 30 Vermont towns passed resolutions on Tuesday seeking to impeach President Bush, while at least 16 towns in the tiny New England state called on Washington to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq.

AP - A former UCLA official and an associate were arrested Wednesday on charges that they illegally sold parts of bodies donated for research in a scheme that produced more than $1 million in profits.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - America voted and ended contestant Antonella Barba's hopes of becoming the next 'American Idol' on Thursday, after several racy photos of the New Jersey resident surfaced on the Internet.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Agriculture on Friday banned farmers from planting a variety of rice containing genetically modified material that has not been approved by the government, and it told growers to destroy any plantings of the seed.

AP - A man accused of chasing his ex-girlfriend through her office, shooting over cubicles and wounding her, was charged with first-degree attempted murder, authorities said.

AP - R.E.M. front man Michael Stipe says he still feels a strong bond with a community of artists and musicians in the college town he calls home.

AP - The question at the heart of Staff Sgt. Ray Girouard's murder trial is this: Who ordered the killing of three Iraqi captives?

AP - An attorney for a sergeant on trial for murder in the death of three Iraqi detainees characterized one of the deaths as a 'mercy killing.'

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - About half of U.S. college students binge drink or abuse drugs, and the number who abuse prescription medication such as painkillers is up sharply, a report released on Thursday found.

AP - The ninth step of the 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous program calls on members to make amends with those they have harmed — unless doing so would cause further injury.

AP - When transit supervisor Eulette Stewart-Graham received a letter from the parent of a distressed child, it wasn't the boy's lost bag that was important — it was the contents: his goldfish, Slurpy. The boy's pet never turned up, but Stewart-Graham responded to the letter anyway. As station supervisor of New York City Transit's lost property unit, she and her staff are used to questions that range from the mundane to the quirky and even bizarre.

AP - Citing inefficiency and concern over employee safety, state officials closed a 128-year-old maximum security prison on Saturday after secretly moving its inmates to other prisons over the past few weeks, according to a newspaper report.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court considers on Monday its first major dispute on student free-speech rights in nearly 20 years, a case about the power of school authorities to censor what they viewed as a pro-drug message at a school-sponsored event.

AP - Anti-war activists draped themselves in white sheets and laid down in the street to symbolize Iraq's dead, halting traffic in the heart of the city and leading to 57 arrests on the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion, police said.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Britney Spears has completed her rehab program and left the luxury facility that shielded the pop singer from the media glare for the first time in her career, a news report said on Wednesday.

MIAMI (Reuters) - Amnesty International urged the United States on Thursday to abandon plans to try Guantanamo prisoners before military tribunals and asked other nations not to contribute any evidence for use at the trials.

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Breaking records is the least of Cullen Jones' goals for next week's world swimming championships; his bigger aim is to break racial stereotypes.

AP - High-security driver's licenses aimed at letting U.S. citizens return from Canada without a passport could be adopted elsewhere if Washington state's experiment works, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said.

AP - A man who pleaded no contest to entering into a sex pact with his girlfriend and her 15-year-old daughter and to having had sex with a 12-year-old relative was sentenced to up to 25 years in prison.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The singer with defunct punk rock band Mest was jailed on suspicion of murder in Los Angeles on Sunday after police said he confessed to stabbing his ex-girlfriend's new lover.

AP - The laboratory that identified the poison believed to be responsible for the death of pets around the country has started testing individual components of the tainted pet food to determine which ingredient was contaminated, officials said Monday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Burger King Holdings Inc. said it will begin buying eggs and pork from suppliers who do not confine their animals in cages and crates, according to a report in The New York Times.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp. is offering another $1,000 in sales incentives on its new Tundra full-sized pickup truck in the United States, as it faces pricing pressure from domestic rivals.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A controversial U.S. health official, Dr. Eric Keroack, has stepped down from his position overseeing programs that include birth control for poor women, the Health and Human Services Department said.

TORONTO (Reuters) - Menu Foods Income Fund, maker of the tainted pet foods at the center of this month's massive recall, said on Friday it is no longer using a Chinese supplier of wheat gluten after U.S. officials found the chemical melamine in some of the recalled products.