AP - National forests and parks — long popular with Mexican marijuana-growing cartels — have become home to some of the most polluted pockets of wilderness in America because of the toxic chemicals needed to eke lucrative harvests from rocky mountainsides, federal officials said.

AP - Trillions in stock market value — gone. Trillions in retirement savings — gone. A huge chunk of the money you paid for your house, the money you're saving for college, the money your boss needs to make payroll — gone, gone, gone.

AP - Now that the Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled same-sex couples have the right to wed, opponents of gay marriage are pinning their hopes on an infrequent ballot question in a longshot bid to block the unions.

AP - A strange cold case murder story that stretched halfway around the globe and back over a span of nearly 30 years ended this weekend a few blocks from where it began, with the shocking suicide of Japanese businessman Kazuyoshi Miura in a downtown jail cell.

AP - Jailed political fundraiser Antoin "Tony" Rezko, the Chicago real estate developer who helped launch Barack Obama on his political career, is whispering secrets to federal prosecutors about corruption in Illinois and the political fallout could be explosive.

AP - The emotionally charged battle over end-of-life decisions has taken to the airwaves as Washington state voters decide whether to allow doctors to prescribe lethal medication to terminally ill patients.

AP - A decade after a gay college student was beaten, tied to a fence and left for dead, many in this small college town are still struggling with the aftermath of a crime that triggered nationwide sympathy and brought a re-examination of attitudes toward gays.

AP - O.J. Simpson, locked in jail and pondering his future, feels hopeful he will win a new trial on appeal because he believes jury interviews show "he was absolutely railroaded," his lawyer told The Associated Press.

AP - The collection spans 50 countries and four centuries and touches on subjects ranging from beer marketing to 19th-century Portuguese politics.

AP - Pick up a Mississippi gopher frog and it covers its eyes with its forefeet, like someone afraid to see what's coming next. And for at least a decade, it's had a good reason not to look.

AP - A family of five, including three children as young as 15 months, died in a blaze Saturday that filled an apartment with thick black smoke and kept the victims from escaping through the front door, fire officials said.