SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- David Frias works two minimum-wage jobs to squeak by in one of the most expensive cities in America.

Grimmer didn't have a job, and the state had denied the family food stamps and emergency help despite repeated requests. Tragic shootings sometimes come without warning, but interviews with family members and neighbors show there were many signs of frustration before Grimmer entered a state welfare building with a .38-caliber handgun earlier this week and shot herself and her children after a seven-hour standoff.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Newt Gingrich's rapid rise in presidential polls has left veteran Republicans scratching their heads, and not just because he vaulted from far back to lead Mitt Romney in several key states.

SAN ANTONIO (AP) -- Breast cancer experts are cheering what could be some of the biggest advances in more than a decade: two new medicines that significantly delay the time until women with very advanced cases get worse.

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The U.S. government barely changed its estimate for next year's corn surplus, which is expected to stay small and keep high food prices high.

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- The University of Kansas is buying up website names such as http://www.KUgirls.xxx and http://www.KUnurses.xxx . But not because it's planning a Hot Babes of Kansas site or an X-rated gallery of the Nude Girls of the Land of Aaahs.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- A private space company will attempt the first-ever commercial cargo run to the International Space Station in February.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama said Thursday it was just common sense to keep girls under the age of 17 from being able to buy a morning-after contraceptive pill off a drugstore shelf. Citing his own two daughters, Obama said: "I think most parents would probably feel the same way."

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Maureen Faulkner waited nearly 30 years for her husband's murderer to be executed. But following a seemingly endless cycle of legal appeals, she said she realized it would never happen.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Barack Obama on Thursday forcefully rejected Republican accusations that his foreign policy is timid and amounts to a policy of "appeasement."