DAVENPORT, Calif. (AP) — Fire crews fanned out Friday across a parched California where wind-whipped wildfires have forced hundreds of people to flee their homes and led to an emergency declaration in Santa Cruz County.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Michael Vick picked a tough place for a second chance.

MOSCOW (AP) — A Russian-manned cargo ship that vanished last month in the Atlantic was found Friday near Cape Verde off the coast of West Africa, according to French and Russian officials. There was no immediate information about the condition of the crew or whether there was anyone else onboard.

EAST HELENA, Mont. (AP) — Three smokestacks that towered over a Montana lead smelter for decades have been demolished.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Amid a boisterous debate on health care reform, people flooded members of Congress on Thursday with so many e-mails that they overloaded the House’s primary Web site.

BARNSTABLE, Mass. (AP) — Eunice Kennedy Shriver was celebrated by family members as a passionate humanitarian and a pious woman devoid of vanity on Thursday night, hours after thousands of mourners flocked to a white and gray clapboard church to pay their respects to the founder of the Special Olympics.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon presented a grim portrait of the Afghanistan war Thursday, offering no assurances about how long Americans will be fighting there or how many U.S. combat troops it will take to win.

BARNSTABLE, Mass. (AP) — Mourners are streaming into a Cape Cod church to pay their respects to Eunice Kennedy Shriver.