At least 21 people have died in severe weather in Missouri, Oklahoma and Georgia.

Senators John McCain and Barack Obama are already drawing up strategies for taking each other on in the general election, focusing on the same groups, campaign aides said.

The funds that pay pension and health benefits to police officers, teachers and millions of other public employees across the country are facing a shortfall that could soon run into trillions of dollars.

A medical helicopter on a return flight after dropping off a patient crashed after takeoff, killing the surgeon, nurse and pilot aboard, officials said Sunday.

President Bush called the wedding "spectacular," saying that his daughter and new son-in-law exchanged vows just as the sun set at the Texas ranch.

Fifty-three illegal immigrants found Sunday had been held against their will in a fortified home by suspected smugglers demanding more money, authorities said.

The coyote was limping as it approached a girl in a sand box at a public park — but it was still dangerous. It snapped its jaws on the girl's buttocks and her nanny had to pry the toddler from the wild animal.

Four times between the winters of 2002 and 2005, a blue-eyed man wearing a ski mask and dark clothes crept quietly into the bedrooms of women in Bloomington, Ill., and raped them.

A minivan crossed an interstate median, flipped and was hit by another vehicle in western Pennsylvania, killing six of seven people on board, state police said Sunday.

This month Joshua Packwood is set to take the stage and address his classmates as the first white valedictorian in Morehouse College's 141-year history.

An unidentified woman has paid off a parking ticket she got in Calumet, Mich., on Sept. 1, 1976.

On this 100th anniversary of Mother's Day, the woman credited with creating one of the world's most celebrated holidays probably wouldn't be pleased with all the flowers, candy or gifts.

This could be the Supreme Court term, one court watcher joked recently, that Justice John Paul Stevens remembers he is a Republican.

Three-week-old Kevin fussed in mother Melissa Lankey's arms until she started singing softly to him, "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." He began dozing within seconds.

The bodies of five people, including three young children, were found Saturday afternoon on a sprawling property with several structures in northeast Houston, police said.

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens says the euthanized Kentucky Derby horse Eight Belles probably died more humanely than death row prisoners do.

A Michigan school has a million thanks to give to a fourth-grader.

At Las Palmitas Elementary School, nestled between rundown homes and fields of grapes, peppers and dates in Southern California, 99 percent of students live in poverty and fewer than 20 percent speak English fluently.

They could pass for mourners at a funeral. They line up along the main drag in front of empty cafes and shops

Emily again topped the list of most popular baby girl names last year, registering as No. 1 for the 12th straight time. Jacob led among names for boys for the ninth year in a row.