JERSEY CITY, N.J. Fire officials say operations at Ellis Island have been widely disrupted by a transformer fire.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. New York State Police investigators said in a written report that a woman who killed seven people plus herself in a crash on the Taconic State Parkway was a regular marijuana user.

KILLEEN, Texas One of two police officers who confronted the alleged Fort Hood killer says he shot Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan before kicking the man's weapon away, handcuffing him and ending the nation's worst killing spree on a military base.

GALLUP, N.M. A slain Catholic nun who lived and worked on the Navajo Indian reservation was remembered Saturday for her passion for the poor at funeral services.

CLEVELAND, Ohio The street corner opposite the home dubbed Cleveland's "House of Horrors" buzzes with visits from mourners, well-wishers, politicians and the curious.

MINNEAPOLIS A Minnesota teen who fled the state to avoid chemotherapy has finished his cancer treatment.

The 13 people killed when an Army psychiatrist allegedly opened fire on fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, included several people who shared the same profession as the alleged shooter, a father of three with ties to Laos whose family had a history of military service, a civilian who had returned to work a week after suffering a heart attack, and a psychiatric nurse who arrived at Fort Hood a day before the shooting. Here is a look at the victims.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. A 36-year-old woman has died after she was struck several times while retrieving boxes on a Sacramento freeway.

WAUKESHA, Wis. Authorities in Wisconsin say an inmate somehow armed himself with a knife and threatened a sheriff's deputy before the officer shot and wounded him.

PHILADELPHIA No new talks are scheduled as the strike by Philadelphia bus drivers, subway and trolley conductors and mechanics enters its second work week following the collapse of a proposed deal.

ORLANDO, Fla. Jason Rodriguez's marriage long ago went sour, his home taken in foreclosure, his job lost to incompetence, his finances sunk in bankruptcy. It was a "stress overload" for the man accused of a deadly shooting rampage at his former office, his lawyer said Saturday.

SHANKSVILLE, Pa. With the words "Let's roll" - the command issued by United Flight 93 passenger Todd Beamer to lead the passenger revolt - U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and 39 victims' relatives and dignitaries turned shovels of dirt at a groundbreaking ceremony Saturday for a permanent national memorial.

McLEAN, Va. It galled her to do it, but Sarah Dillon was desperate for answers, so she wrote letters to convicted snipers John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo: If you murdered my son, please confess, she wrote.

NEW YORK Students and university officials started getting e-mails last year in which a prominent Judaic studies scholar seemed to make a startling confession: He had committed plagiarism.

TEMPLE, Texas Texas governor Rick Perry has visited with wounded victims from the Fort Hood shooting.

HARTFORD, Conn. A memorial to honor a Sept. 11 victim from a small northwestern Connecticut town has been halted by the unexpected conflict arising from his father's insistence it say his son was murdered by "Muslim terrorists."

CANCUN, Mexico Hurricane Ida swiped the resort city of Cancun on Sunday with bands of wind and rain as it steamed north toward the Gulf of Mexico, where officials issued a hurricane watch for coastal Louisiana and Mississippi.

FORT HOOD, Texas Former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, have visited wounded soldiers and their families after the mass shooting at Fort Hood.

MARION, Ala. The sign going on the front door at the Perry County courthouse reads: "Closed for the Obama Holiday."

DENVER A man who threatened to kill Barack Obama last summer just before the Democratic National Convention in Denver has pleaded guilty to federal weapons charges.

BALTIMORE The accusations that Mayor Sheila Dixon used holiday gift cards for the needy during personal shopping sprees may sound like a minor embarrassment at worst, a small-time case of a politician enjoying the perks of power.

MIAMI Tropical storm warnings have been issued for parts of Mexico and Cuba as Ida rapidly gains strength over Caribbean waters.

NEW YORK The USS New York, built with steel from the rubble of the World Trade Center, was put into Navy service Saturday both as a symbol of healing and strength.

SHANKSVILLE, Pa. Esther Heymann was overflowing with grief for her stepdaughter. Standing in a blustery snow, overlooking the empty field where Flight 93 had crashed a couple of years earlier, she couldn't stop crying.

MIAMI Ida has become a tropical storm again, with top winds of 45 mph (72 kph), as it swirls in the Caribbean on a track that could bring it to the U.S. Gulf Coast next week.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska Suspected swine flu is sweeping a traditional Eskimo whaling village on a remote Alaska island - prompting an urgent medical mission to deliver help.

Donald Baim

PATCHOGUE, N.Y. The family of an Ecuadorean man slain on a Long Island street will be among those participating in a candlelight vigil and memorial service to mark the first anniversary of the killing.

PATCHOGUE, N.Y. The high school buddies who trolled the streets looking for Hispanics to attack called it "beaner hopping."

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. A federal appeals court has ruled that Santa Cruz City Council members did not violate a man's rights when they ordered him removed from a council meeting after he made a one-armed Nazi salute.