A notorious stretch of Highway 12 has been dedicated to the memory of a Rio Vista police officer killed in a head-on crash.

Over the years, Del Paso Heights Elementary students have struggled -- but now, they're celebrating a 59-point jump in test scores.

In his speech Thursday night, John McCain presented himself as a leader who has acted to change the way government works. Text of McCain's speech

California student progress measures released Thursday shows the achievement gap between racial groups has slightly shrunk.

With state water supplies already low, officials preparing for another dry year are considering a drought water bank.

Work furloughs and buyouts are two options city officials are considering as they try to reduce Stockton's $16 million budget deficit. 

AP - Some Southeastern states declared emergencies and officials urged residents to head inland Thursday as Tropical Storm Hanna headed toward the Atlantic coast, where it could bring high winds and rain from South Carolina to Maine.

AP - Victims of Hurricane Gustav who can't return to their homes over the next month because of storm damage or power outages can have their hotel costs covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, officials said Thursday.

AP - Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was bounced from office Thursday in a deal with prosecutors that will send him to jail and put an end to the sex scandal that embarrassed this chronically struggling city and preoccupied its government for months.

AP - Doug Watts, a painter from Phoenix, watched in spite of himself. There was Sarah Palin on television, and he found himself mesmerized.

AP - A man who as a teen helped shoot and kill five people in a schoolyard ambush was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison on an unrelated federal weapons charge.

AP - The big switch to digital TV has prison officials scrambling to keep one of the most important peacekeeping tools in prisons across the nation — broadcast television.

AP - An American-educated Pakistani woman who's been labeled an al-Qaida supporter refused to appear in federal court Thursday to answer charges that she tried to kill U.S. soldiers and FBI agents after they detained her this summer in Afghanistan.

AP - A lawyer for former Gov. James McGreevey's ex-wife said Thursday she will drop a charge that she was duped into marrying him if he agrees to pay her $109,000 a judge says he owes.

AP - An influential New Jersey Muslim leader accused by some federal officials of having terrorist ties but praised by others as being an important ally won his fight to gain permanent U.S. residency Thursday.

AP - When two gunmen smashed through the glass front door of her suburban Fort Worth home, Kellie Hoehn didn't think twice.

AP - The departure of a key figure in a record $660 million clergy sexual abuse settlement has endangered part of the deal that some plaintiffs consider more important than the money: the promise by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles to allow the release of accused priests' confidential files.

AP - Smog, soot and other particles like the kind often seen hanging over Beijing add to global warming and may raise summer temperatures in the American heartland by three degrees in about 50 years, says a new federal science report released Thursday.

AP - City and state officials tried to hold them off, but New Orleans residents would have none of it. After Hurricane Gustav brushed by the city, they wanted back in, and now.