HARLINGEN, Texas (AP) — An ex-convict who pleaded no contest to sexually abusing his daughter was sentenced to 320 hours of community service crocheting blankets. Despite an outcry over the seemingly lenient sentence, the prosecutor said he had been ready to dismiss the case against Robert Wayne Thompson for lack of evidence. The charges surfaced…

WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite his view that death penalty appeals are clogging the courts, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts provided free legal help to an inmate languishing on Florida’s death row for two decades. The 25 hours of legal assistance that Roberts reported to the Senate Judiciary Committee are minuscule compared with thousands of hours…

SPACE CENTER, Houston (AP) — Eileen Collins, commander of the shuttle Discovery and the only mother on board, has been sending messages every day from space to her young son and daughter. The e-mails are calm and reassuring, “telling them what I’m doing and telling them that I love them and that I miss them…

LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Tony Blair proposed strict anti-terror measures Friday that would allow Britain to expel foreigners who preach hatred, close extremist mosques and bar entry to Muslim radicals. “The rules of the game are changing” following last month’s bomb attacks, he declared. The proposals, which also target extremist Web sites and bookshops,…

WASHINGTON (AP) — During President Bush’s first term, the economy created just 119,000 new jobs. So far in his second term, the economy already has created more than 10 times that number. Whether you count from January of this year, when Bush took office for a second time, or February — the first full month…

CHATTANOOGA (AP) — Four Hamilton County teenagers exposed to a rabid bat are undergoing preventive treatment, health officials said Friday. The treatment involves a series of shots over a period of three weeks to a month, officials said. Officials did not provide details of the exposure other than saying the teens handled the bat that…

CHATTANOOGA (AP) — A Republican legislator who filed an ethics complaint against Democrat Lois DeBerry said her acceptance of $200 from an undercover FBI agent posing as an executive differs from a GOP lawmaker taking a campaign donation in a public corruption sting. Rep. Brian Kelsey, a freshman legislator from Germantown, said he filed the…

CARTHAGE (AP) — Police say they are almost certain they have found the body of a Nashville woman who disappeared nearly six weeks ago and had complained an ex-boyfriend was stalking her. They discovered the body of a woman Thursday after a two-day search for Christina Eileen Hunt near her ex-boyfriend’s property in Smith County.…

NASHVILLE (AP) — The former Nashville attorney charged with second-degree murder in the nine-year-old case of his missing wife waived extradition in a Los Angeles courtroom Friday. Perry March, 44, who was deported by Mexican immigrant officials Wednesday, is expected back in Nashville next week when a criminal court judge has ordered he be held…

OAK RIDGE (AP) — Hundreds of peace activists were expected at the Y-12 nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge on Saturday to mark the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Japan. The Oak Ridge plant enriched uranium for the “Little Boy” bomb dropped on Hiroshima — the first nuclear weapon used in wartime…