AP - A Chicago man admitted Thursday that he scouted out the Indian city of Mumbai for a 2008 terrorist attack that left 166 people dead and plotted an attack on a Danish newspaper over cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

AP - Before this flood season, officials in Fargo asked homeowners to clear paths in their yards so that firm and straight walls of sandbags could be placed to protect their homes. One resident cut down his tree. Another went so far to use a torch to melt the ice off his ground.

AP - Patients, growers and clinics in some of the 14 states that allow medical marijuana are increasingly falling victim to robberies, home invasions, shootings and even murders at the hands of pot thieves.

AP - The man who staged a St. Patrick's Day bank robbery in a leprechaun costume and died during a police shootout also held up a bank three days before Christmas in a Santa suit, police said Thursday.

AP - A woman accused of trolling the Internet as Jihad Jane and agreeing to marry a terrorist suspect and kill a Swedish artist targeted by radical Muslims cooperated with authorities, a congressman said.

AP - Roman Polanski's attorneys filed an appeal Thursday asking that a special counsel be appointed to investigate alleged judicial and prosecutorial misconduct in the director's 32-year-old sex case.

AP - South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford has agreed to pay $74,000 in fines to resolve dozens of charges that he violated state ethics laws with his campaign spending and travel, including a taxpayer-funded rendezvous with his Argentine mistress, the State Ethics Commission said Thursday.

AP - When Alana Sanders gave birth to her fourth child, the people on hand to towel off the baby and tie its umbilical cord weren't the usual team of doctors or nurses. They were her 11-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son.

AP - A teacher at a failing school where he and all his colleagues are being fired hung an effigy of President Barack Obama in his classroom, apparently in reaction to Obama's support of extreme measures to ensure accountability in schools.

AP - Convicted serial killer Rodney James Alcala may be linked to the disappearances of at least six possible unsolved cases, Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said Thursday.

AP - Sandra Bullock is on a career high. America's Sweetheart and "Miss Congeniality" was repeatedly anointed as Hollywood royalty this year, sweeping awards season and capping it off with an Oscar for her role as a devoted mom in "The Blind Side."

AP - An attempt by the California Legislature to impose what is believed to be the nation's most far-reaching smoking ban in state parks stalled Thursday over objections it would inappropriately punish smokers.

AP - Fess Parker, a baby-boomer idol in the 1950s who launched a craze for coonskin caps as television's Davy Crockett, died Thursday of natural causes. He was 85.

AP - Last fall, as swine flu cases mounted and parents desperately sought to protect their kids, the hard-to-get vaccine was handed out in some surprising places: the Royal Caribbean cruise line, the headquarters of drug giant Merck, the Johnson Space Center and a Department of Energy office in Idaho.

AP - Mac Butler believes he'll beat the bloated Red River and save his home again this year. But a canoe and kayak are tied up outside his house just in case he's wrong.

AP - Day laborers on foot from Long Island and Californians who sold tamales to pay for their trip are expected to rally on Sunday in Washington, D.C., with tens of thousands of immigrants, many of them undocumented Hispanics, to dramatize their pleas for immigration reform.