AP - A gunman police shot to death after he took hostages at Discovery Channel's headquarters said he hated the company's shows such as "Kate Plus 8" because they promote population growth and its environmental programming because it did little to save the planet.

AP - The former television producer who tried to blackmail David Letterman over the comedian's office affairs was freed from jail Thursday, city Correction Department records show.

AP - The cap that ended BP's three-month oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico was set to come off Thursday as a prelude to raising a massive, failed piece of equipment and preparing for a final seal on the broken seafloor well.

AP - The idea seemed simple though bold: Call reputed gang leaders to a meeting with top police and federal prosecutors and deliver an ultimatum to end killings in the nation's third-largest city.

AP - A hurricane warning is out for part of the Massachusetts coast including Nantucket as Earl bears down on the Eastern Seaboard.

AP - The defeat of Republican U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski by an upstart fiscal conservative in Alaska's GOP primary could mark a significant shift for a state that has so long relied on federal pork to survive. The outcome was also an unexpected blow to the seniority Alaska has enjoyed in the Senate.

AP - Frank McCourt had trouble recalling some details involving his purchase of a professional baseball team, but he was certain of one thing: he's the sole owner.

AP - A murder suspect who led officers on a high-speed chase with his dead girlfriend in the passenger seat is a central figure in the investigation of at least four killings, authorities said Wednesday.

AP - It's been three years since Scott Eckersley was fired after pointing out that his then-boss, former Gov. Matt Blunt, and others in Blunt's administration should not be deleting certain e-mails because they belonged to the public record.

AP - A Detroit-area woman who was removed from a jury for commenting about the ongoing case on Facebook has a longer writing task ahead: a five-page essay about the constitutional right to a fair trial.

AP - Nearly two dozen mountaineers and park rangers are searching for the son of Hall of Fame boxing promoter Bob Arum, who's been missing since a weekend camping trip in the Cascade Mountains of Washington state.

AP - Allergan Inc., the maker of wrinkle-smoothing Botox, has agreed to pay $600 million to settle a yearslong federal investigation into its marketing of the top-selling, botulin-based drug.

AP - Sophisticated computer models that replaced instinct with cold, hard math have helped forecasters predict where a storm like Hurricane Earl is going about twice as accurately as 20 years ago.

AP - It is "unethical, insensitive and inhumane" to oppose the planned mosque near ground zero, more than 50 leading Muslim organizations said Wednesday as they cast the intense debate as a symptom of religious intolerance in America.

AP - Six men who were sexually abused three decades ago by a leader of their Boy Scouts troop have settled lawsuits against the national organization dedicated to building character among youngsters.

AP - Hurricane Earl steamed toward the Eastern Seaboard early Thursday as communities from North Carolina to New England kept a close eye on the forecast, worried that even a slight shift in the storm's predicted offshore track could put millions of people in the most densely populated part of the country in harm's way.

AP - An 18-year-old high school student stockpiled bomb-making materials in his bedroom and wrote about wanting to blow up his school, target individuals he hated, rape women and "become the world's most infamous sociopath," authorities said.