LOS ANGELES Firefighters on Sunday took advantage of cooler, damper weather to battle a vast blaze ravaging Santa Barbara County as they tried to gain a foothold against the fire before the expected return of hotter, drier conditions.

PITTSBURGH A state senator goes on trial this week for allegedly contributing to the death of a 14-year-old neighbor who was found shot to death in the woods with the senator's handgun.

GREENSBURG, Pa. Hundreds of teens in the Pittsburgh region are taking cyber gym courses, despite critics who say there is no substitute for real physical education classes.

STEWARTSTOWN, Pa. Kim Taylor thought she had set the emergency brake.

DANVILLE, Pa. The grandson of a New York gospel singer has become the third person to die following a crash in Pennsylvania involving a wrong-way driver.

PITTSBURGH Pittsburgh police have charged one man and are searching for a second after a shooting that left two people dead in a minivan in the Lincoln-Lemington neighborhood.

INDIANA, Pa. Emergency personnel in Indiana, Pa., have evacuated residents within a 900-foot radius of a home as a precaution after the discovery of explosives in a home.

VALENCIA, Pa. Firefighters from 20 companies battled a blaze that destroyed a Butler County mineral and fertilizer manufacturing plant on Saturday.

PATTON, Pa. A 21-month-old Blair County toddler is dead after drowning in an aboveground pool at a Cambria County home.

Share photos of your July 4 weekend activities, and the Central PA 4th Fest, by adding them to our events photo blog.

JOHNSTOWN, Pa. Every business looks for a trademark, a means by which it is always recognized and easily remembered.

LEVITTOWN, Pa. Police in Bucks County say a pair of suspected shoplifters left a 3-year-old boy in a supermarket cart as they fled arrest.

RALEIGH, N.C. Former Sen. Jesse Helms, an unyielding champion of the conservative movement who spent three combative and sometimes caustic decades in Congress, where he relished his battles against liberals, Communists and occasionally a fellow Republican, died on the Fourth of July. He was 86.

WASHINGTON "Compromise, hell!" Jesse Helms screamed in a 1959 editorial that captured what would become the legacy of his Senate career and his place in the conservative movement.

LOS ANGELES Larry Harmon wasn't the original Bozo the Clown, but he was the real one. Harmon, who portrayed the wing-haired clown for more than half a century, died Thursday of congestive heart failure, said his publicist, Jerry Digney. He was 83.

LANCASTER, Pa. A Lancaster County lawmaker proposes to strip deputy game wardens of much of their power following a December encounter his son had with a deputy in York County, a newspaper reported Friday.

PHILADELPHIA Two investment firms pulled the plug Thursday on their $5.82 billion acquisition of Penn National Gaming Inc. after the racetrack and casino operator's stock price tumbled.

PHILADELPHIA Police have a suspect in the 1985 killing of a 13-year-old boy whose body was found in a thicket months after he left home on a bicycle, a coroner said Thursday.

UNIVERSITY PARK — Special 3D-like eyeglasses that spread out light into its rainbow spectrum components will be distributed free of charge to viewers of the Central PA 4th Fest fireworks today.

BELLEFONTE — Eight district attornies and members of the Pennsylvania District Attorney Association held a news conference to support Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira and to condemn criticism leveled at him by Mountour County’s top prosecutor.