U.S. National - AP

DETROIT - Only hours after agreeing to resign and serve time in jail as part of plea deal, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick expressed regret for the scandal that has engulfed the city — and left the door open for a return to public life.

PHILADELPHIA - Calling all ninth-grade boys! Raise your hand if this school sounds like fun: wearing jackets and ties every day, staying until 5 p.m., learning Latin and — to top it all off — no girls.

HONOLULU - A U.S. Coast Guard helicopter has crashed in waters five miles south of Honolulu, and officials say three crewmembers have been recovered and one remains missing. Officials aren't releasing the recovered crewmembers' conditions.

SEATTLE - Isaac Zamora's mother begged him to get help when he was released from jail a month ago. State and federal laws prevented her from doing much more for the man who has now been arrested after a shooting spree in rural northwest Washington that left six people dead and four wounded.

SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco is delaying a controversial program that would provide identification cards to all residents regardless of legal status.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Two-thirds of a century ago, Kathleen Wyman drove her brother to California to join the Navy. From there, he shipped out to the USS Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor.

NEW ORLEANS - 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.

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

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - 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.

COLUMBIA, S.C. - 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.

NEW YORK - 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.

WILMINGTON, N.C. - 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.

TRENTON, N.J. - 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.

NEWARK, N.J. - 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.

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

LOS ANGELES - 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.

WASHINGTON - 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.

NEW ORLEANS - 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.

SAN ANGELO, Texas - Child by child, Texas authorities are acknowledging that many of the children seized during a raid on a polygamist sect's ranch can safely live with their parents or guardians.