A correctional officer dressed for work was shot and killed  standing by his garage this morning, say police. Detectives are looking for the shooter.

Flames are still burning awfully close to some Los Angeles-area homes, but calm winds have been a big help to firefighters and a big relief to homeowners this morning.

The third and final presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama is coming up tonight. Watch the debate Live_Online. Visit the Vote 2008 page.

A Wednesday morning fire engulfed several apartment structures in Sacramento's Natomas area.

A group of concerned parents have removed their children from a elemenatary school music class where the teacher recently underwent a gender change.

AP - A respite in Santa Ana winds allowed firefighters to beat back flames that continued to whirl dangerously close to homes Wednesday morning along the city's northwestern suburbs.

AP - Flying in the U.S. has been transformed since Sept. 11, with passengers forced to remove their shoes, take out their laptop computers and put liquids and gels in clear plastic bags. Yet it's perfectly legal to take a loaded gun right up to the security checkpoint at some of the nation's biggest airports.

AP - Mexican officials are trying to persuade Americans to visit Ciudad Juarez, touting the city in a new billboard campaign as a "land of encounters." But on this side of the border, that sounds like a cruel joke.

AP - Smaller school buses will have to be equipped with lap-and-shoulder seat belts for the first time under a government rule drafted following the deaths of four Alabama students on a school bus that nose-dived off an overpass.

AP - The mother of a missing 3-year-old Florida girl went before a judge Wednesday to hear charges she killed her daughter, a day after she was indicted following four months of searches that yielded no sign of the child.

AP - Carla Souza was a dutiful member of the Mormon church, hosting dinner meetings at her house, taking care of children in the nursery school and going out with missionaries to spread the word about her faith.

AP - Mexican laborers in a World War II-era guest-worker program can soon apply for money that was withheld from their paychecks and sent to the Mexican government.

AP - The first inmate to die by lethal injection in Ohio in more than a year argued to the end that his obesity would make it difficult for prison staff to find suitable veins in his arms to deliver the deadly chemicals.

AP - Eighteen people, including a state representative, NBA Hall of Famer, former assistant federal prosecutor and ex-city council president, answered a call for candidates to run the city of 900,000 after its disgraced mayor resigned.

AP - Toxicology tests show that the driver of a charter bus that crashed on a rural Northern California road, killing nine, was not drunk or on drugs at the time, prosecutors said Tuesday.

AP - Five Detroit police officers are suing the city, saying they were forced to go on sick leave when their bosses learned they were pregnant, even if they could perform other duties.

AP - Call it the political revenge of the nerds. For nearly eight years, many mainstream scientists have been frustrated with the Bush administration. They've claimed that science has been censored, ignored and politicized on issues from global warming to stem cells to evolution. Even the presidential science adviser was booted from the White House, forced to set up office down the street.

AP - A mother who angered fellow parents when she openly carried a pistol to her 5-year-old daughter's soccer game got her concealed weapons permit back Tuesday after a Pennsylvania judge overruled a sheriff's decision to revoke it.