Jenna Bush picks You Are So Beautiful for dance with Dad

By Chuck France (AP)

As a boy, Michael Conner Humphreys made a splash on the silver screen as \"Young Forrest Gump.\" As an adult, he somewhat mirrored the life of his movie character: He joined the Army and fought in an unpopular war.

Humphreys\' enlistment ends June 4 and Hollywood is already calling. He\'s landed a role in an independent film, playing, of course, a soldier.

It\'s a route similar to that of Tom Hanks, who won the Oscar for playing adult Forrest Gump.

Hanks later starred in \"Saving Private Ryan\" and produced \"Band of Brothers,\" a series about the men of Easy Company of...

By (AP)

Jon Edwards often manages what appears impossible. He has recovered precious data from computers wrecked in floods and fires and dumped in lakes.

Now Edwards may have set a new standard: He found information on a melted disk drive that fell from the sky when space shuttle Columbia disintegrated in 2003.

\"When we got it, it was two hunks of metal stuck together. We couldn\'t even tell it was a hard drive. It was burned and the edges were melted,\" said Edwards, an engineer at Kroll Ontrack Inc., outside Minneapolis. \"It looked pretty bad at first glance, but we always give...

By Rob Carr (AP)

Nick Saban normally spends this time of year on the road evaluating prep prospects and visiting with high school coaches.

The Alabama coach is doing a different kind of networking these days _ all from the comfort of his office. Saban is among a handful of college head coaches using video conferences to chat with recruits because they can\'t meet in person.

A new NCAA regulation _ dubbed the \"Saban Rule\" _ is keeping coaches from making those traditional visits to high school campuses during the spring evaluation period that runs through May.

Web cams have hardly...

By Haraz N. Ghanbari (AP)

Daniel Suson has a doctorate in astrophysics and has worked on the superconducting super collider and a forthcoming NASA probe. Now he\'s heading back to school to take on an even trickier task _ getting elected to public office.

He is among a growing number of scientists who feel slighted and abused in the public debate in recent years and are mobilizing for a new effort to inject \"evidence-based decision making\" into public policy.

On Saturday, Suson, dean of engineering, mathematics and science at Purdue University Calumet, will join more than 70 other scientists,...

By RYAN MOORE (AP)

Amber Parker watched on television as the storm near her home grew into a tornado threat. Then, when the roaring wind outside suddenly fell silent, she grabbed her two toddlers and rushed to get under the stairwell.

\"We just got inside the door frame when I was pushed inside ... then everything went,\" said Parker, tears welling in her eyes as she described the chaotic scene during a brief discussion with reporters near her demolished home in central North Carolina.

Neighbors helped the 36-year-old Parker and her two children _ a 2-year-old and a 3-year-old _ out of the...

By DANIEL R. PATMORE (AP)

Marco Allen Chapman is ready to die.

After more than three years of waiting for courts to consider an appeal he never wanted, the death row inmate may soon get his wish and become the first person executed in Kentucky since 1999.

\"I\'m willing to accept the consequences for the crime I committed,\" Chapman told The Associated Press in a recent interview, his first since pleading guilty to the 2002 stabbing deaths of two children after a two-day crack binge.

Several states are moving swiftly forward on death penalty cases after the U.S. Supreme Court, in a landmark...

By RYAN MOORE (AP)

Authorities were waiting for daylight early Friday so they could begin assessing the damage from a reported tornado that killed one person and injured three others in central North Carolina.

What law enforcement officers said was a tornado touched down on the outskirts of Greensboro late Thursday as severe storms swept across the Southeast, damaging homes and businesses in at least three other states.

An apparent tornado also wrecked a shopping area in Mississippi and strong winds flipped a mobile home in Alabama. In south-central Tennessee, at least four homes and a few...

By RYAN MOORE (AP)

A line of severe storms swept across the Southeast on Thursday, damaging homes and businesses in at least four states. One person was killed and three were injured by a tornado in North Carolina, authorities said.

An apparent tornado wrecked a shopping area in Mississippi and strong winds flipped a mobile home in Alabama. In south-central Tennessee, at least four homes and a few barns were damaged.

A tornado touched down late Thursday on the outskirts of Greensboro, N.C., blowing three tractor-trailers off Interstate 40, authorities said. One person was killed and two were...

By RYAN MOORE (AP)

A line of severe storms swept across the Southeast on Thursday, damaging homes and businesses in at least four states. No injuries were reported.

An apparent tornado wrecked a shopping area in Mississippi and strong winds flipped a mobile home in Alabama. In south-central Tennessee, at least four homes and a few barns were damaged, and an apparent tornado blews cars off the road in North Carolina.

In Alabama, at least 15 school systems released students early, while others held students late as squalls passed. Winds blew a piece of metal roofing off Hamilton High School,...

By RYAN MOORE (AP)

A line of severe storms swept across the Southeast on Thursday, damaging homes and businesses in at least three states. No injuries were reported.

An apparent tornado wrecked a shopping area in Mississippi and strong winds flipped a mobile home in Alabama. In south-central Tennessee, at least four homes and a few barns were damaged. Portions of Alabama remained under tornado watches until early Thursday evening.

In Alabama, at least 15 school systems released students early, while others held students late as squalls passed. Winds blew a piece of metal roofing off Hamilton...

By H. Rumph Jr (AP)

Philadelphia Eagles coach Andy Reid\'s son was sent to state prison after admitting he smuggled 89 prescription pills into a county jail. Garrett Reid pleaded guilty to drug smuggling charges on Wednesday and faces a minimum of two years in state prison.

The 25-year-old Reid, however, could be released earlier to a less restrictive facility if he is accepted into a drug-treatment program, Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said.

Reid is already serving time in the county jail for a heroin-fueled car crash that injured a motorist. Jail officials say he...

By Elise Amendola (AP)

Barack Obama\'s march toward the Democratic presidential nomination picked up support from four more superdelegates Wednesday, pushing him ever closer to victory over Hillary Rodham Clinton _ even as their primary marathon staggered on.

She added two superdelegates herself in what has become the last big contest as their race winds toward a finish.

There are just 217 delegates to be chosen in the final six primaries, and neither candidate can win enough of them to claim final victory. Meanwhile, 265 additional delegates _ the party elders and other \"superdelegates\" _ have...

By LEFTERIS PITARAKIS (AP)

A Jewish astronaut greets Israel from space. Revelers try to set a record for the most people singing a national anthem. To celebrate turning 60, Israel is staging fireworks, air force flyovers and a birthday bash for anyone born on the day the Jewish state was founded.

Israel is marking its 60th Independence Day, which began at sundown Wednesday, with a great sense of pride but also uncertainty about its future and doubts about prospects for peace with the Palestinians. Six decades after rising from the ashes of the Holocaust, the Jewish state is still plagued by threats from...

By Mike Groll (AP)

As other cars zipped by at 70 mph or more, Mike Papin and his wife, Joann, kept rolling along just below the 65 mph limit as they made their way from their winter home in Florida to a summer place in Vermont.

They\'ve typically done six or seven miles above the speed limit during the annual migration, but with gasoline prices roaring toward $4 a gallon nationally, Joann suggested they ease off the pedal during the 1,500-mile drive this year.

\"I read somewhere that around 62 or 63 was the best speed to drive to make the most of your gas,\" she said.

Drivers have known...

By Mark Humphrey (AP)

Picture the Manhattan skyline filled with Nike swooshes. Or the golden arches of McDonald\'s gently drifting over Los Angeles.

A special-effects entrepreneur from Alabama has come up with a way to fill the sky with foamy clouds as big as 4 feet across and shaped like corporate logos _ Flogos, as he calls them.

Francisco Guerra, who\'s also a former magician, developed a machine that produces tiny bubbles filled with air and a little helium, forms the foam into shapes and pumps them into the sky.

The Walt Disney Co. will use one of the machines next month to send clouds...

By Jae C. Hong (AP)

Barack Obama swept to victory in the North Carolina primary on Tuesday but fell behind Hillary Rodham Clinton in Indiana, the last big-delegate prizes left in their long race for the Democratic presidential nomination. Obama\'s win mirrored earlier triumphs in Southern states with large black populations, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina among them.

The Associated Press made its North Carolina call based on surveys of voters as they left the polls.

That made Indiana, a virtual must-win Midwestern state for the former first lady, who was hoping to counter...

By Elise Amendola (AP)

Barack Obama swept to victory in the North Carolina primary on Tuesday but fell behind Hillary Rodham Clinton in Indiana, the last big-delegate prizes left in their long race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Obama\'s win mirrored earlier triumphs in Southern states with large black populations, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina among them.

The Associated Press made its North Carolina call based on surveys of voters as they left the polls.

That made Indiana, a virtual must-win Midwestern state for the former first lady, who was hoping to counter...

By John Russell (AP)

College teams that consistently underperform in the classroom are getting hit harder by the NCAA.

Nearly 150 college teams face possible scholarship losses next season and 26 others are in danger of being banned from postseason play if they don\'t improve next year.

The NCAA\'s annual academic progress report was released Tuesday. It showed more than 700 teams fell short of the mandated cut score.

But only 218 were penalized with warning letters, potential reductions in scholarships and practice time and warned they face possible postseason bans. Some were granted...

By Chuck Burton (AP)

Voter excitement, always up before a presidential election, is pushing registration through the roof so far this year _ with more than 3.5 million people rushing to join in the historic balloting, according to an Associated Press survey that offers the first national snapshot.

Figures are up for blacks, women and young people. Rural and city. South and North.

Overall, the AP found that nearly one in 65 adult Americans signed up to vote in just the first three months of the year. And in the 21 states that were able to provide comparable data, new registrations have soared...

By Chuck Burton (AP)

Voter excitement, always up before a presidential election, is pushing registration through the roof so far this year _ with more than 3.5 million people rushing to join in the historic balloting, according to an Associated Press survey that offers the first national snapshot.

Figures are up for blacks, women and young people. Rural and city. South and North.

Overall, the AP found that more than one in 66 adult Americans signed up to vote in just the first three months of the year. And in the 20 states that were able to provide comparable data, new registrations have soared...

By (AP)

Today is Sunday, May 11, the 132nd day of 2008. There are 234 days left in the year. This is Mother\'s Day.

Today\'s Highlight in History:

On May 11, 1858, Minnesota became the 32nd state of the Union.

On this date:

In 1502, Christopher Columbus left Cadiz, Spain, on his fourth and final trip to the Western Hemisphere.

In 1647, Peter Stuyvesant arrived in New Amsterdam to become governor of New Netherland.

In 1888, songwriter Irving Berlin was born Israel Baline in Temun, Russia.

In 1910, Glacier National Park in Montana was established.

In...

By (AP)

When members of an anti-illegal immigration group offered to sponsor litter cleanup on local roads, they never imagined California officials would offer them an Adopt-a-Highway stretch near a Border Patrol checkpoint on Interstate 5, the main artery carrying illegal migrants north from the U.S.-Mexico border.

On Friday, lawyers for the San Diego Minutemen told a federal judge that the state had no right to rescind the offer after state legislators complained to the California Department of Transportation. The group asked that its blue Adopt-a-Highway sign be put back where it stood...

By (AP)

A look at some major colleges football programs\' takes on the new technique of head coaches using Web cams to talk to recruits, which is allowed by the NCAA:

_LSU\'s Les Miles, Tennessee\'s Phillip Fulmer and Alabama\'s Nick Saban have begun using Web cams following a new NCAA rule that keeps head coaches from visiting high school campuses during the spring.

_Southern California\'s Pete Carroll, a top recruiter, is sticking to cell phones and landlines this spring. \"We haven\'t been doing it. We\'re aware of it,\" USC spokesman Tim Tessalone said.

_Arizona\'s Tom...