DETROIT (Reuters) - Emotional and jubilant Iraqi expatriates braved long trips and frigid weather to cast their votes across the United States on Friday, their enthusiasm making up for their low numbers.

SALINA, Kan. (Reuters) - Steve Fossett, who sailed around the globe in a balloon three years ago, took off from a Kansas airfield on Monday trying to circle the Earth nonstop in a one-engine plane without refueling.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - An idling diesel pickup truck may have triggered the March 23 blast that killed 15 workers at BP Plc.'s Texas City, Texas refinery, an investigator said on Thursday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - First Lady Laura Bush grabbed the stage from President Bush at the White House correspondents annual dinner on Saturday and confessed to all his early bedtimes had turned her into a 'desperate housewife.'

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California's attorney general on Tuesday appealed a San Francisco judge's finding that the state's ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Faced with jail for one of its reporters, Time magazine agreed on Thursday to hand over his notebooks to a grand jury probing the leak of a covert CIA operative's name, in a move that raises questions about press freedom in America.

FORT A.P. HILL, Va. (Reuters) - President Bush delivered a pep talk on Sunday to thousands of Boy Scouts, urging them not to waver after four tragic deaths and a rash of heat-related illnesses cast a pall over their camping 'Jamboree.'

AP - They lost their homes. Now some Hurricane Katrina survivors are losing their hotel rooms.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Testing the waters of his tarnished celebrity a decade after his acquittal on murder charges, O.J. Simpson appeared at a Halloween-themed comic book convention on Friday night to sign autographs, but few beside the media seemed to care.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. plan for helping handle a pandemic of deadly bird flu, to be outlined by President George W. Bush later on Tuesday, is expected to center on strengthening the vaccine industry.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Medicare has received thousands of complaints about its temporary drug discount card, according to a congressional report released on Wednesday as the agency grapples with new gripes about the card's replacement program.

AP - Two snowshoers were caught in an avalanche Saturday high in the mountains of Provo Canyon and one remained missing when heavy snow and the threat of more slides forced rescuers to call off the search.

AP - A double killer was executed Tuesday, half an hour after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected arguments that he might be mentally retarded and that lethal injection caused pain.

AP - A student panel discussion Tuesday on Islamic extremism that included a display of Prophet Muhammad cartoons drew protesters outside the auditorium and descended into name-calling inside.

AP - A student at West Virginia University apparently hanged himself by accident in his dorm room while doing an activity known as the 'choking game,' a university spokeswoman said Friday.

AP - When A-list stars have legal troubles or need to negotiate seven-figure movie deals, they often turn to powerhouse attorney Bert Fields.

AP - Seeking a bigger say in homeland security decisions, the nation's governors are creating a new, 50-state panel to give the states a single voice on national plans to prepare for threats from terrorists and natural disasters.

AP - A gunman toting an assault rifle got out of a vehicle and shot a child, a teenager and a young man to death on a street Friday before the car sped away, police said.

MIAMI (Reuters) - Beating on cooking pots and honking car horns, hundreds of Cuban exiles streamed into the streets of Miami's Little Havana to celebrate news that Cuban President Fidel Castro had handed over power.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California's legislature passed a bill on Thursday night aimed at increasing competition among cable television providers and easing the ability of telephone companies to enter the market.

AP - A man was shot to death Saturday in a mall parking lot following an argument over citizens band radio, police said.

AP - At least one person was killed and several others seriously injured late Tuesday night in a fire at an old, three-story hotel in Reno's downtown casino district, a fire spokesman said.

AP - The use of a cutting torch and flawed construction of a safety barrier caused a May 20 explosion at an eastern Kentucky coal mine that killed five miners, a state investigation has concluded.

AP - A small plane crashed into a yard Sunday morning, killing four people aboard and embedding its engine into a house, authorities said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Blacks still have a much higher death rate from cancer than whites even though U.S. cancer death rates are down overall and among blacks as well, the American Cancer Society said on Thursday.

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 13-year-old boy was charged with manslaughter for allegedly attacking another boy on a school playground who later died of his injuries, police said.

AP - Los Angeles can continue being the butt of smog jokes now that it has once again topped the American Lung Association's bad air list of most polluted cities in America.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is urging its citizens to think twice about traveling to Venezuela, citing protests and political tensions over the closure of an opposition broadcaster in Caracas.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - San Francisco slugger Barry Bonds has called for increased security at his home ballpark after a fan entered the field and approached him during Friday's game with Arizona.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Scientists have found a second gene that helps predict whether people with depression will respond to a commonly prescribed antidepressant, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

AP - Four winning tickets were sold — one in each of four states — for a Mega Millions jackpot worth an estimated $330 million, lottery officials said early Saturday.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The Teamsters union and United Parcel Service Inc on Sunday said they reached a tentative five-year agreement that will raise parcel workers' wages and increase the company's contributions to funds providing pensions and benefits.

AP - Members of a fundamentalist Kansas church ordered to pay nearly $11 million in damages to a grieving father smiled as they walked out of the courtroom, vowing that the verdict would not deter them from protesting at military funerals.

AP - Former police officer Drew Peterson paid a relative to help him move a large container from a bedroom on the day Peterson's wife vanished, according to a friend of the relative.

AP - Federal air marshals charged a Seattle-area man with groping a female passenger aboard a United Airlines flight that the pilot diverted to Pittsburgh because of the disturbance.

AP - Aruban prosecutors said Thursday that authorities are investigating new information in the Natalee Holloway case provided by a Dutch crime reporter.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Barry Bonds won an initial courtroom skirmish on Friday when a federal judge found that steroid perjury charges against him were improperly structured, a finding that complicates the government case against the baseball home run king.

AP - It will take more than two destroyed homes to get Skip and Linda Miller off the mountaintop property where they've lived for 30 years.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Hispanics in the United States grew to 45.5 million last year, and the country's largest minority group now makes up more than 15 percent of the U.S. population, the U.S. Census Bureau reported on Thursday.

AP - President Bush has asked his defense and interior secretaries to look into designating Pearl Harbor and other historic World War II sites in the Pacific a national monument.

AP - Ever since he fatally shot two men he suspected of burglarizing his next-door neighbor's home, 62-year-old Joe Horn has been both praised and vilified for his actions.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Motors Corp is in talks with Indian automaker Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd and automakers in Russia and China about selling its Hummer brand, sources familiar with the matter said.

AP - David Paulison was having trouble with the little things — an agency phone number, remembering what day it was.

AP - Soldiers and families who deal with enough stress during 12-month deployment to Iraq say they're now keeping a little closer eye on their finances.

AP - A 12-year-old boy trick-or-treating with his family in central South Carolina was shot from inside a home Friday and killed, and his father and brother were wounded by the gunfire, authorities said.

AP - California's day of reckoning has finally come for three decades of tough-on-crime policies that led to overcrowded prisons and unconstitutional conditions for inmates.