Scott Kazmir sparkled in his first start since agreeing to a $28.5 million contract extension, and the surprising Tampa Bay Rays dropped the New York Yankees into last place with a 5-2 victory Thursday.

A combination of two new-generation cancer drugs modestly delayed the time it took for cancer to worsen in a study of 300 women with very advanced disease who had stopped responding to other treatments.

California's Supreme Court declared Thursday that gay couples in the nation's biggest state can marry - a monumental but perhaps short-lived victory for the gay rights movement that was greeted with tears, hugs, kisses and at least one on-the-spot proposal.

A man accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail into the woods as firefighters battled large blazes nearby set several other small fires to throw off officers who were pursuing him, police said Thursday.

John Phillip Law, the strikingly handsome 1960s movie actor who portrayed an angel in the futuristic "Barbarella" and a lovesick Russian seaman in "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming," has died. He was 70.

At least no one can accuse them of rushing to judgment.

University of Idaho President Tim White, who helped lead the Moscow campus through one of its most turbulent periods, has been named the new chancellor of the University of California-Riverside.

Forget the pool. The bitter battle over Olympic swimsuits is now in the courts, less than three months before the Beijing Games.

California is pressuring the Bush administration to deliver on its promise to outfit two massive National Guard cargo planes for firefighting duty by July, warning Thursday that residents face another season of wildfire danger.

IN THE HEADLINES