U.S. National - AP

BRIDGEVILLE, Pa. - Police say a western Pennsylvania man told them he kicked his girlfriend's puppy to death because he was upset that the pit bull wouldn't behave before the start of the Pittsburgh Steelers game.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - The federal government said Monday that it has found a "strong association" between problematic imported Chinese drywall and corrosion of pipes and wires, a conclusion that supports complaints by thousands of homeowners over the last year.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - A pair of astronauts stepped out on the third and final spacewalk of their shuttle mission Monday, helping to install an enormous oxygen tank at the International Space Station.

PORTLAND, Ore. - At the newly opened Cannabis Cafe, people sit around taking tokes from a "vaporizer" — a contraption with a big plastic bag that captures the potent vapors of heated marijuana. Glass jars hold donations of dried, milky-green weed, and the cafe serves up meals and snacks for the hungry.

LAREDO, Texas - A U.S. program that offers trusted trucking companies speedy passage across American borders has begun attracting just the sort of customers who place a premium on avoiding inspections: Mexican drug smugglers.

DETROIT - Funeral services are under way for a 15-year-old Michigan boy who police say pleaded for mercy before being fatally shot by his father.

GLASGOW, Ky. - Kentucky State Police say two arrests have been made following the discovery of three bodies in rural Kentucky.

HOUSTON - Michael Jackson's doctor returned to work at his Houston medical clinic on Monday for the first time since the pop star's death.

EAST PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A bitter dispute over abortion that prompted Rhode Island's Roman Catholic bishop to ask Rep. Patrick Kennedy not to receive Holy Communion has revealed the depth of the divide among Catholics over how politicians should reconcile their faith with their public duties.

JACKSON, Miss. - Over the last three years, the FBI scoured faded documents, interviewed aging lawmen and tracked down witnesses from killings that occurred decades ago, many of them involving white police officers who shot black men or teenagers.

NEW YORK - The five men facing trial in the Sept. 11 attacks will plead not guilty so that they can air their criticisms of U.S. foreign policy, the lawyer for one of the defendants said.

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Officials are trying to determine how workers cutting a pipe stirred up radioactive dust at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.

NEW YORK - Fewer people are expected to fly this holiday season, but travelers shouldn't expect a full reprieve from the horrid flight delays of Thanksgivings past, especially if they need to land anywhere near New York City.

NEW YORK - Like any wife who knows her husband well, Nancy Martus knows what will annoy her man. Like when she utters the phrase, "Oprah says..."

PARK FALLS, Wis. - Forests are a treasure trove of limbs and bark that can be made into alternative fuels and some worry the increasing trend of using that logging debris will make those materials too scarce, harming the woodlands.

OAKLAND, Calif. - A train passenger's video of an arrest shows heavy-duty glass shattering and showering down on a San Francisco area transit police officer and an unruly passenger in an incident that injured both men.

ARTOIS, Calif. - An oil boom is under way in California's agricultural heartland, as evolving tastes and a trend toward healthy fare have transformed a profession as old as civilization: olive production for the extra virgin market.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The man considered the father of lethal injection in the United States said it doesn't matter whether three fatal drugs are used or one — as his home state of Ohio has proposed — as long as the drug works efficiently.

WASHINGTON - Lawmakers broke along party lines on a new aspect of the health care debate Sunday as a former National Institutes of Health chief urged women to ignore guidelines that delay the start of breast cancer screenings.