A Northern California mother is mourning the loss of her son and daughter in separate weekend tragedies, after her son died in the hospital Tuesday morning.

Across America, earthen flood levees protect big cities and small towns, wealthy suburbs and rich farmland. But the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal agency that oversees levees, lacks an inventory of thousands of them and has no idea of their condition, the corps' chief levee expert told The Associated Press.

As the bloated bodies rise and fall with the current, women scrub clothes along the river bank, villagers bathe to cool themselves and a lone child sits on a dock staring aimlessly into the water.

The lawyer for a 20-year-old man accused of stabbing a University of California, Berkeley student to death last weekend says he is not convinced his client committed a crime.

Prosecutors have charged a 20-year-old man with murder for the stabbing death of a University of California, Berkeley student last weekend.

NAME - Doug Ose.

The House Judiciary Committee voted Tuesday to compel a top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney to testify to the committee about the Bush administration's interrogation practices.

If Julie Pollock had ever heard of a flood in Foster City, she would not be balking at the prospect of being required to buy flood insurance for her home.

The rice fields that blanketed this remote mountain village for generations are gone. In their place rise neat rows of young rubber trees - their sap destined for China.

Dead frogs rarely tell tales.