TOP U.S. NEWS PHOTOS

March 10: Alan Trounson, president of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine, poses for a portrait at his offices in San Francisco. Trounson reacted very favorably to the news that President Obama on Monday cleared the way for a significant increase in federal dollars for embryonic stem cell research.

AP

March 10: Bernard Madoff arrives at Manhattan federal court for a hearing to discuss potential conflicts of interest between him and his lawyer on Tuesday in New York. Madoff was wearing a bullet-proof vest and arrived early.

AP

March 10: Derris Lewis enters Judge Guy L. Reece's Franklin County Common Pleas Courtroom for his trial in the death of his twin brother in Columbus, Ohio. Lewis, 19, has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder, aggravated robbery and kidnapping in the January 2008 attack that killed his twin brother, Dennis. The attack was supposedly over control of a drug ring that the twins founded together.

AP

March 10: Photographer Bruce Weaver sets up a remote camera at the Kennedy Space Center, in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The Space Shuttle Discovery with a seven member crew is scheduled to launch Wednesday evening, from the launch pad at right, on a mission to the International Space Station.

AP

March 9: Ice is an uninvited guest in homes right along the waterfront of Saginaw Bay, Mich., where high winds have driven ice over the seawalls and into homes. Authorities evacuated about 30 homes Sunday along Linwood, Brissette and Killarney beaches.

AP

March 10: United States Barista Champion Mike Phillips holds up his trophy after winning the caffeine-fueled title. Mike Phillips normally works at Intelligentsia Coffee in Chicago, Illinois.

AP

March 8: Iditarod rookie Kim Darst from Blairstown, N.J., drives her team down the starting chute of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race Sunday in Willow, Alaska. Darst has worked for 10 years to achieve her Iditarod dream, a dream she said will end up costing her $50,000. As of Monday night, Darst was the leader of the race.

AP

March 10: Photography collector Keya Morgan holds what he believes is a rare, unpublished photograph of Abraham Lincoln, the only image of the 16th president in front of the White House and the last sitting of Lincoln in 1865 before he died. The image by photographer Henry F. Warren was uncovered in the personal album of Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.

AP