COLUMBIA, S.C. A South Carolina pawn shop owner accused by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg of recklessly selling a rifle to an ex-convict pleaded guilty Friday to a federal weapons charge.
BOSTON A Boston Fire Department ladder truck coming down a hill plowed through an intersection Friday and crashed into a high-rise apartment building, killing one firefighter and seriously injuring a second.
NAME: Sheila A. Dixon.
NEW ORLEANS Since Hurricane Katrina, the beer-soaked, urine-splashed, puke-puddled French Quarter of old has been scrubbed clean. But with the city facing tough financial times, it may no longer be able to afford to pay for all the services of an army of sanitation workers who pick up after the partying.
CHICAGO U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin said Friday that Roland Burris should not be seated in the U.S. Senate because he has failed to get the secretary of state's signature on his appointment to replace President-elect Barack Obama in the chamber.
BALTIMORE Mayor Sheila Dixon was indicted Friday on charges that she accepted illegal gifts during her time as mayor and City Council president, including travel, fur coats and gift cards intended for the poor that she allegedly used instead for a holiday shopping spree.
AUBURN, Ind. A cattle truck overturned in northeastern Indiana, spilling nearly 40 animals and closing a highway for several hours.
WASHINGTON Gen. Colin Powell asked Americans to consider their day off on Martin Luther King Day a "day on" instead.
ALEXANDRIA, Va. Kyle "Dusty" Foggo is the highest ranking officer in the history of the CIA to be convicted of a federal crime, admitting he abused his influence to steer contracts toward an old friend who showered him with vacations, gourmet dinners and other gifts.
NEW ORLEANS New Orleans' district attorney is backing off the idea of his office filing for bankruptcy.
WASHINGTON Georgia and the United States laid out a road map Friday for deeper cooperation that they hope will lead to Georgian membership in Western institutions such as NATO.
NEW YORK Federal prosecutors have dropped criminal charges against former Reagan budget director David Stockman.
STEVENSON, Ala. A retention pond at a Tennessee Valley Authority coal-burning power plant leaked waste into a northeast Alabama creek Friday, ramping up pressure on the utility that already is trying to clean up last month's major coal ash spill at a plant in Tennessee.
CHICAGO Gov. Rod Blagojevich was out jogging in Chicago as lawmakers in Springfield voted to impeach him. Upon returning from his jog, he likened his situation to long-distance running.
HEATHSVILLE, Va. An eastern Virginia couple arrested after their 6-year-old son crashed the family car while trying to drive himself to school appeared in court Friday on child-endangerment charges.
SANTA ANA, Calif. Immigrant rights advocates expressed outrage over two new rules going into effect in the waning days of the Bush administration, one affecting how immigrants are represented in deportation cases and another mandating DNA tests for detained immigrants.
McLEAN, Va. An anthropologist embedded with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan to help soldiers understand local customs has died more than two months after she was doused with fuel and set on fire.
GENEVA The United Nations kept its aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip on hold Friday as Israel and Hamas ignored a Security Council cease-fire demand.
GRETNA, La. A Louisiana baby sitter is charged with second-degree murder after prosecutors say she put a baby into a spinning clothes dryer for disturbing her television watching.
VICTORVILLE, Calif. A 6-year-old boy brought a loaded handgun to his Southern California elementary school and it wasn't discovered until recess when he was sent to the campus office because of sagging pants.
Only seven U.S. governors have been impeached and removed from office:
JASPER, Ind. An explosion at a southern Indiana wood laminate plant Friday sent 10 workers to a hospital with injuries, collapsed walls and set dust on fire, authorities said.
EAST LONDON, South Africa The African National Congress hopes to keep its large majority in South Africa's parliament with promises of more jobs, fewer AIDS deaths and less crime, as it faces its toughest election challenge since toppling apartheid.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. Former Alabama first lady Cornelia Wallace, who threw herself over Gov. George C. Wallace when he was shot in a 1972 assassination attempt, has died in Sebring, Fla. She was 69.
ALBANY, N.Y. She messed up her first interviews, didn't show much of a grasp of the issues and, dontcha know, had a speech pattern that was widely mimicked. Sarah Palin? You betcha. But Caroline Kennedy also fits the bill. The difference is that while the conservative Republican Palin was ridiculed in the press and on "Saturday Night Live" in her quest to be vice president, the liberal Democratic Kennedy, after early criticism in the media, remains the perceived favorite in her bid for a Senate seat from New York.
HARTFORD, Conn. Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel's lawyers have filed a new appeal of his murder conviction, claiming that police and prosecutors failed to provide them with evidence that pointed to another suspect and discredited a key state witness.
NEW YORK A former actor on "The Sopranos" was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison for a botched burglary in the Bronx in which an accomplice shot and killed an off-duty police officer. A jury acquitted Lillo Brancato Jr. of second-degree murder in the death of the police officer, but convicted him of attempted burglary. He had faced up to 15 years in prison.
SPRINGFIELD, Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich was impeached Friday by Illinois lawmakers furious that he turned state government into a "freak show," setting the stage for an unprecedented trial in the state Senate that could get him thrown out of office. The 114-1 vote in the Illinois House came exactly a month after Blagojevich's arrest on charges that included trying to sell President-elect Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat. The debate took less than 90 minutes, and not a single legislator rose in defense of the governor, who was jogging in the snow in Chicago.
MIAMI Charles McArthur Emmanuel, the son of former Liberian President Charles Taylor and head of a savage paramilitary unit known as the "Demon Forces," was sentenced Friday to 97 years in prison for torture overseas in the first U.S. case of its kind.
CHEYENNE, Wyo. Run for your lives ... Yellowstone's going to explode!
