Checking out the office in your home state, as well as the states where you might go to college, should be part of your summer to-do list. Resources and the office's name vary by state. You can start with this .

Wherever you go, look for links to student and family resources. Once you find those, focus on the following five valuable options.

[Follow these simple steps to .]

1. Online guidance and planning tools: While websites differ, just about every state features online tools that can help you plan and pay for college. One of the best is Kentucky'ssite, which offers education planning advice for all ages.

The Iowa College Student Aid Commission'ssite provides a wide view of everything from career exploration and test prep to financial aid and postgraduate activities.

Even if your state doesn't have a dedicated planning tool, it will likely have a , like this one from Massachusetts, where you can get started.

2. In-person and offline events: One advantage of these offices' local focus is that they can offer residents more face-to-face opportunities to connect and learn. The Minnesota Office of Higher Education will soon be supplementing its online tool set with "," a series of college planning and application events for high school seniors across the state.

The Maryland Higher Education Commission conducts monthly financial aidat high schools and colleges. And higher education offices across the nation are often closely involved withefforts in January and February.

[Avoid making these costly .]

3. Loan, grant and savings information: Most states offer education loans and grants to qualified students. These funds are usually managed by the higher education office, as are the states' , known as 529 accounts. Minnesota provides a straightforward 529for students and parents, as well as offers a detailed look at the state's low interest rate .

Washington's thorough state site covers all things 529 and features a wide array of grants and loans under the "" banner.

4. Scholarship searches and applications: Washington also offers a unique resource called , which allows resident students to find scholarships from public and private-sector providers across the state. While this is the most ambitious search we've found, other states do feature online applications for government-funded programs or listings of statewide scholarships.

[Get advice on using scholarships as a .]

5. Resources for military and veteran students: The U.S. Armed Forces provides a wide array of educational benefits to active-duty servicemen and women, reservists and veterans. But those benefits often come with confusing paperwork, restrictions or deadlines.

If you're a veteran or currently serving, your state higher education office can help you make sense of it all. Some states, likeand , have easy-to-find resources on their websites. If you can't find the information you need, reach out to your state's office.

No matter what your needs are, we recommend you contact state higher education offices with questions. Many are now active on , meaning a tweet, a Facebook message or an email can help you learn what you need to from these often-overlooked resources.

Matt Konrad has been with Scholarship America since 2005. He is an alumnus of theand a former scholarship recipient.

The Fox action-comedy starring the funny ladies as mismatched detectives earned $40 million in second place in its opening weekend, topping the $25.7 million debut haul of Sony's "White House Down," according to studio estimates Sunday.

The Disney-Pixar animated prequel "Monsters University" remained box-office valedictorian in its second weekend, earning $46.1 million in first place.

As for "The Heat," employing two female leads to buck the male-dominated buddy-cop formula paid off in ticket sales.

"I think the fact that we have a female-centric movie standing out in a forest of giant tent-pole movies is phenomenal," said Chris Aronson, Fox's president of domestic distribution. "Audiences really responded. We positioned this to be a female event movie, and we got the opening that we were hoping for this weekend."

"White House Down," which features Tatum as a wannabe Secret Service agent and Foxx as the President of the United States of America, was inaugurated below expectations in fourth place. The film's White House takeover plot is strikingly similar to FilmDistrict's "Olympus Has Fallen," which opened in March and starred Gerard Butler and Aaron Eckhart.

"It turned out to be a very competitive weekend," said Rory Bruer, Sony's president of worldwide distribution. "We had hoped 'White House Down' did better, just from the standpoint that we love this film, but I feel very hopeful that with the July 4th holiday coming up, it will be the perfect film for audiences, and it'll really add up for us."

Meanwhile, Paramount's "World War Z" took another bite out of the box office in its second weekend domestically with $29.8 million. Overseas, the globe-trotting zombie thriller starring Brad Pitt cleared $70.1 million in 51 territories.

"I think the variety of films is what brought people out to the movie theaters," said Paul Dergarabedian, an analyst for box-office tracker Hollywood.com. "There's a G-rated movie at the top of the chart and an R-rated movie in second place. That says a lot about the summer marketplace and how a unique slate of films can propel the box office."

"Man of Steel" is still flying high in its third week, coming in fifth place with $20.8 million in North America and $52.2 million in such international markets as Australia, Sweden and China. The Warner Bros. retelling of Superman's origin passed the $500 million mark on Saturday.

Overall, Dergarabedian said revenue and attendance are now both down just 2 percent over last year, and this weekend's films grossed 8.5 percent less than last year when Universal's "Ted" opened with $54.4 million at the box office. He said those numbers could shift further next week when Disney's "The Lone Ranger" and Universal's "Despicable Me 2" debut.

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Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released on Monday.

1. "Monsters University," $46.1 million ($44.2 million international).

2. "The Heat," $40 million.

3. "World War Z," $29.8 million ($70.1 million international).

4. "White House Down," $25.7 million ($6.8 million international.)

5. "Man of Steel," $20.8 million ($52.2 million international).

6. "This Is the End," $8.7 million.

7. "Now You See Me," $5.5 million ($5 million international).

8. "Fast & Furious 6," $2.4 million ($6.1 million international).

9. "Star Trek: Into Darkness," $2 million ($2 million international).

10. "The Internship," $1.4 million ($3.6 million international).

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Estimated weekend ticket sales at international theaters (excluding the U.S. and Canada) for films distributed overseas by Hollywood studios, according to Rentrak:

1. "World War Z," $70.1 million.

2. "Man of Steel," $52.2 million.

3. "Monsters University," $44.2 million.

4. "Despicable Me 2," $41.5 million.

5. "The Hangover Part III," $7.7 million.

6. "Fast & Furious 6," $6.1 million.

7. "Epic," $5.1 million.

8. "Now You See Me," $5 million.

9. "The Internship," $3.6 million.

10. "The Great Gatsby," $3.3 million.

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Universal and Focus are owned by NBC Universal, a unit of Comcast Corp.; Sony, Columbia, Sony Screen Gems and Sony Pictures Classics are units of Sony Corp.; Paramount is owned by Viacom Inc.; Disney, Pixar and Marvel are owned by The Walt Disney Co.; Miramax is owned by Filmyard Holdings LLC; 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight are owned by News Corp.; Warner Bros. and New Line are units of Time Warner Inc.; MGM is owned by a group of former creditors including Highland Capital, Anchorage Advisors and Carl Icahn; Lionsgate is owned by Lions Gate Entertainment Corp.; IFC is owned by AMC Networks Inc.; Rogue is owned by Relativity Media LLC.

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Follow AP Entertainment Writer Derrik J. Lang on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/derrikjlang.

After a yearlong construction shutdown because of a funding dispute, and additional months of cleanup following a shocking flood caused by Superstorm Sandy, work has been racing ahead again at the museum, which sits in a cavernous space below the World Trade Center memorial plaza that opened in 2011.

About 130 workers are at the site each day and there is much left to be done, but officials with the museum said the project is on track to open to the public in the spring of 2014.

Some of the museum's most emotion-inspiring artifacts already are anchored in place.

Tears rolled down Anthoula Katsimatides' cheeks Thursday as she toured halls holding a mangled fire truck, strangely beautiful tangles of rebar and the pieces of intersecting steel known as the Ground Zero Cross.

"It makes me sad," said Katsimatides, whose brother John died at the trade center. But it's also inspiring, said Katsimatides, who sits on the museum's board. "Seeing it come to fruition is pretty intense."

Work on the museum was halted for nearly a year, starting in the fall of 2011, because of a money fight between the memorial foundation and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the trade center site.

In retrospect, that slowdown was a blessing. Shortly after the two sides worked out their differences, Superstorm Sandy sent the Hudson River thundering through lower Manhattan and filled the museum cavern with 7 feet of water.

The flood destroyed interior walls and electrical circuits, but the construction delay meant that hundreds of artifacts and exhibits that might have been in the museum still hadn't been fabricated or were sitting safely in storage. There was minor flash rusting to one of the fire trucks that had already been lowered into the space, but the damage was repaired by conservators and isn't noticeable today, said National September 11 Memorial & Museum President Joseph Daniels.

Today there is no sign that there was ever a flood. Daniels said there has been "almost indescribable" progress on construction since the storm.

Structural work appears mostly complete on the glass pavilion and wide staircase and ramp visitors will use to descend into the museum, past two towering "tridents" that once helped form the distinctive base of the twin towers. Once silvery, the columns were stripped bare by the fires on 9/11 and are now the color of rusted, raw steel.

From a mezzanine, patrons will be able to peer into a deep, nave-like hallway nicknamed the South Canyon. The hall's high western wall will eventually be covered with a multitude of notes and letters of support that people around the world sent to New York after the attacks.

"They continue to send things. It's amazing," Katsimatides said. "That outpouring of support is one of the things that got the 9/11 families through."

Further down the ramp, visitors come to a platform overlooking an even more massive cavern bordered by the slurry wall, a 70-foot-tall, steel-studded concrete slab originally built to keep the Hudson River from flooding the trade center construction site.

In the hall's center stands the last steel column removed from ground zero during the cleanup operation. Recovery workers covered the pillar with their signatures before it was carried away, and visitors will get a chance to leave their own mark on another big piece of steel near the museum's exit though their autographs will be captured by a computerized touch screen and projected on the slurry wall, rather than left in ink on metal.

Throughout the museum, curators have hung pieces of steel that were bent and twisted into striking shapes, including one sheet of metal that now appears to ripple like a flag and a huge girder bent by the impact of the aircraft hitting the towers.

Many of them look like sculptures.

"In a strange way, they are like pieces of art," Katsimatides said. But Daniels added that they weren't chosen for their beauty, but to explain what happened at the site on 9/11.

A few design elements of the museum are still under discussion.

When visitors descend to the very bottom of the museum where, in some places, they will be able to view the very bedrock that the towers once rested upon they will enter a hall with a large wall bearing an inscription from Virgil. "No day shall erase you from the memory of time."

Behind that wall will sit a special mausoleum, off limits to the general public, containing the unidentified remains of hundreds of 9/11 victims. Most of the interior walls of the museum have the look of bare concrete, as a constant reminder of the site's location within the old trade center foundation. But Daniels said the museum's designers are talking about possibly cladding this wall in a different material, or a different color, to separate it from the rest.

"It's a special place. Do we need something to distinguish it?" he said.

The bulk of the work remaining to be completed will revolve around installing the museum's exhibits, which will include many artifacts, including a wall made up of portraits of all 2,983 victims and a room where visitors will be able to call up video presentations that tell a story about each of them.

"The idea is to learn about the lives that they lived, not just the deaths that they died," Daniels said.

Temperatures were likely to hit well over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Centigrade) in Fresno, California, Phoenix and to the north in Boise, Idaho, and Spokane, Washington, according to Accuweather.com.

Temperatures in western states are 10 to 20 degrees above average, according to the National Weather Service.

"Many of the same locations that broke records over the weekend may break them again on Monday," it said on its web site.

The blasting heat was expected to last at least through Tuesday, meteorologists said.

"While many folks over the interior West are accustomed to and expect hot weather during the summer, this pattern is taking the heat to the extreme," said AccuWeather meteorologist Alex Sosnowski.

In Death Valley, California, the mercury hit 128 degrees F (53 degrees C) on Saturday and Sunday, tying the June record, meteorologists said. The highest temperature recorded on earth was 134 degrees F (57 degrees C) in Death Valley in 1913.

In the eastern United States, meanwhile, low heavy cloud cover and the threat of thunderstorms were causing flight delays at airports in the New York City region and in Philadelphia.

Dry drought conditions and concern over the risk of fires were forcing the cancellation of Fourth of July fireworks celebrations, particularly in Colorado, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico, according to Accuweather.com.

The heat wave, caused by a dome of hot air trapped by a high pressure ridge, contributed to the death of an elderly man on Saturday in Las Vegas, where searing temperatures reached an all-time high of 118 F (48 C) and sent scores of people to hospitals with heat-related illnesses.

(Reporting and writing by Ellen Wulfhorst)

Paul Katami and Jeff Zarrillo of Burbank, California, were among the plaintiffs in the case Hollingsworth v. Perry that went before the U.S. Supreme Court this year.

The Supreme Court earlier this week sent the case back to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which on Friday lifted a stay on its order striking down the California gay marriage ban.

The couple will wed at Los Angeles City Hall at 6:15 p.m. local time, said a statement from the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which sponsored the legal challenge.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis; editing by Paul Thomasch)

The sale fetched a total of 675 million euros, Bankia said in a stock market notice. The bank, which was bailed out by the Spanish state last year to the tune of 24 billion euros, is expected to shed its industrial holdings as part of a restructuring plan.

(Reporting by Clare Kane; Editing by Tracy Rucinski)

Today, at age 12, he plays like a puppy through the day, his fur is soft and he sleeps at night, soothed not by magic, but by the dose of marijuana in that cheese.

Bugni-Daniel is part of a growing movement to give medical marijuana to pets in pain. Many urge caution until there's better science behind it. But stories abound about changes in sick and dying pets after they've been given cannabis even though it isn't a proven pain killer for man or mutt, and it's an illicit drug under federal law despite being legal for people in 19 states and the District of Columbia.

Leading the charge is Los Angeles veterinarian Doug Kramer, 36, known as the "Vet Guru," who felt it was his duty to speak out while he has no family that would feel a verbal or financial backlash.

"I grew tired of euthanizing pets when I wasn't doing everything I could to make their lives better," he said. "I felt like I was letting them down."

Pot eased his Siberian husky's pain during her final weeks, after she had surgery to remove tumors. Not only did Nikita stop whimpering while using cannabis, but she started eating, gaining weight and meeting him at the door again.

It gave him six extra weeks with his dog before he had to euthanize her, he says. It wasn't a cure, but he thinks it freed her of pain and improved her last days.

Some other vets contacted said they share Kramer's view on pot, but they wouldn't talk on the record for fear of arrest or retaliation.

Kramer hasn't lost any clients over his view, but he was asked not to return to some of the clinics where he volunteered or relieved other vets because of concerns over the negative image his advocacy creates, he said.

Dr. Duncan Lascelles, a professor of surgery and pain management at North Carolina State University College of Veterinary Medicine, thought about studying marijuana a decade ago. He didn't, not for lack of interest, but because the timing was wrong.

"I have been considering looking at that field again because I think it does have a lot of potential," he said.

He also figures those all-important grants needed for research will be available now.

Testing could take 10 years or more to be sure a pain killer will be effective and free of side effects, Lascelles said.

Kramer said it's unconscionable to let a decade pass, when millions of pets will die of illness and old age.

Vets who want traditional testing point to a study by two Colorado animal hospitals that compared the number of dogs treated for what appeared to be accidental marijuana overdoses between 2005 and 2010 with increases in the number of marijuana licenses issued. As registrations increased 146-fold, the number of sickened pets went up four-fold.

"Sometimes public sentiment and activity gets ahead of the scientific background and that can be dangerous," said Barry Kellogg, senior veterinary adviser to the Humane Society of the United States.

While two dogs with pot in their system died in the Colorado survey, hallucinogenic reactions may make dogs wobbly on their legs, raise their pulse and cause dribbly urine, said Dr. Karl Jandrey, an emergency and critical care vet at the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital at the University of California, Davis.

But pot clinic managers say that a proper dose of the drug will prevent a bad reaction.

Jessica LeRoux of Twirling Hippy Confections in Denver made custom treats that helped extend the life of her last service dog, a black Lab-border collie mix named Thor.

"I got the 15th year out of that relationship because of the product I made for him," she said.

Old or ailing pets who take cannabis usually experience an immediate boost in appetite and relief from pain. That lets them get around, relieve themselves without help, sleep better and enjoy their families until age or disease catches up, LeRoux said in explaining how the cannabis helps pets.

At La Brea Compassionate Caregivers in Los Angeles, manager Megan Hanley recommends a drop of liquid marijuana extract marketed as Companion Cannabis for every 10 pounds of dog. It can be spread on cheese or bread.

"It's a revolutionary product and response to it has been tremendous in the last year," she said.

Bugni-Daniel, in Divide, Mont., is allowed to have four marijuana plants under state law for her medical needs. She turns that into extract for her and Rabito.

Marijuana has been like the fountain of youth for the American bulldog.

"It's really nice to see your sick pet, for his last moments or weeks or months, be happy and not real sick and dealing with needles and surgery," Bugni-Daniel said.

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AP writer Kristen Wyatt in Denver contributed to this report.

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Online:

Kramer: www.vetguru.com

Companion Cannabis: www.companioncannabis.com

In a lawsuit filed with the Manhattan federal court on Thursday, BMI said it had proposed an increase in Pandora's fees "consistent with market rates to reflect the explosive growth of the Internet music streaming marketplace."

BMI collects license fees on behalf of over 600,000 affiliated songwriters, composers and music publishers and distributes them as royalties to those members whose works have been performed.

One of the main challenges facing the decade-old Pandora is the rising cost of licensing music, which grows as more people tune in. The company had about 70.8 million active listeners at the end of May.

On Tuesday, Pandora said it agreed to purchase KXMZ-FM, a Rapid City, South Dakota-area radio station.

Pandora hopes the radio station deal will allow it to pay lower rates similar to the ones paid by traditional broadcasters such as Clear Channel Communications Inc on their digital services, such as Clear Channel's iHeartRadio.

BMI said in the filing it expects Pandora to claim it is no different from commercial broadcast radio now that it owns a radio station.

BMI currently has agreements with Pandora's rivals Spotify and Music Choice, in which the rates and terms are "the same as, or higher than, BMI's proposal to Pandora," it said in the filing.

BMI did not disclose the proposed license fees in the court filing. It has requested the court to confirm as "reasonable" the rates and terms requested by BMI for using music in the BMI portfolio.

Meanwhile, BMI said it had negotiated an interim license fee to be paid by Pandora starting January 1 until such time the dispute is resolved.

"Disputes regarding the reasonableness of fees between BMI and music users are adjudicated in federal court ... we look forward to the court's oversight of this matter," Pandora spokeswoman Mollie Starr told Reuters.

The case is in re Broadcast Music Inc vs Pandora Media Inc, Case No. 13-4037, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York.

(Reporting by Sakthi Prasad in Bangalore; Editing by Jeremy Laurence and Mark Potter)

(Reuters) - A once-weekly drug for type 2 diabetes developed by Eli Lilly and Co worked better at controlling blood sugar than three other widely used medicines, according to data from late- stage clinical trials.

The data, presented on Saturday at the American Diabetes Association (ADA) meeting in Chicago, also showed that the Lilly shot helped patients lose twice as much weight as those taking Merck & Co's $4 billion-a-year drug, Januvia.

The findings from the trio of late-stage studies suggest the treatment known as dulaglutide could be an important new weapon in the fight against type 2 diabetes, whose rapid growth globally has become a crisis affecting more than 300 million people.

"This is a very promising, safe and efficacious agent for the treatment of diabetes," Dr Guillermo Umpierrez, one of the lead investigators of the dulaglutide Phase III trial program, said in an interview.

Diabetes is a disease in which the body does not produce enough insulin to control levels of blood sugar. It can lead to many serious health complications including heart problems, kidney disease and vision loss.

The results of the new studies showed that an injection of dulaglutide led to sustained reductions in blood sugar and helped more patients reach recommended target levels than those taking generic metformin, Byetta, a drug from Bristol-Myers Squibb Co, and Januvia, the studies showed. There were no reported cases of serious hypoglycemia, or dangerously low blood sugar.

Lilly plans to use data from the three trials as a major part of the application seeking U.S. approval for dulaglutide it expects to file later this year.

If approved, dulaglutide would become a direct rival of once-weekly Bydureon, sold by Bristol-Myers Squibb and AstraZeneca Plc, and Victoza from Danish drugmaker Novo Nordisk.

Like those medicines, dulaglutide belongs to a class of injected drugs known as GLP-1 receptor agonists that work by increasing the release of insulin after meals and by slowing absorption of food in the gastrointestinal tract.

Doctors are still likely to initially reach for oral drugs such as metformin for type 2 patients, but an injectable drug that needs to be taken only once a week could become an important treatment, researchers said, as diabetics often need two or three medicines to properly control blood glucose.

"I believe the use of GLP-1s will continue to increase and this new formulation of a once-a-week administration will be very attractive to patients and physicians," said Umpierrez, a professor of medicine at Emory University in Atlanta who presented data from one of the trials at the meeting.

SAFETY RISK?

While data from the three studies appears to show a comforting safety profile, dulaglutide will be under intense scrutiny from health regulators. The GLP-1 class, and the DPP-4 inhibitors to which Januvia belongs, have been associated with unconfirmed reports that they may cause serious inflammation of the pancreas and cell changes that can lead to cancer.

Two cases of pancreatic cancer reported among study participants were deemed highly unlikely to be connected to dulaglutide, the company and researchers said.

Lilly said there were similar rates of pancreatitis among patients taking comparator drugs or a placebo.

"There is no concern so far of pancreatitis or pancreatic tumors," Umpierrez said.

One of the studies dubbed Award-1, involving 978 patients over 52 weeks, tested dulaglutide against Byetta, a which is injected twice a day. Subjects in the study were already taking metformin and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co's Actos.

Adding dulaglutide to this mix helped 80 percent of patients reach target blood sugar levels - an A1c of 7 - compared with about 50 percent of those taking Byetta.

Dulaglutide and Byetta patients on average lost 3.3 pounds (1.5 kilograms), an attractive side benefit as obesity is a leading cause of type 2 diabetes.

In a separate 52-week study called Award-3, researchers tested dulaglutide against metformin - the most commonly used initial treatment for type 2 diabetes - in 807 patients earlier in their disease progression. They began the trial with an average A1c of 7.6 percent, above the ADA target of 7 percent.

People who took a 1.5 mg dose of the Lilly drug saw an average drop in their A1c of 0.8 percent, with 62 percent of patients getting to target blood sugar levels. That compared with a drop of 0.56 percent for metformin with 54 percent getting to goal.

Weight loss with dulaglutide was about 4.4 pounds (2 kg) and 3.3 pounds (1.5 kg) for metformin.

A third trial, dubbed Award-5, was a two-year study that tested dulaglutide against Januvia in more than 1,000 patients who were already taking metformin.

Patients who got dulaglutide had an average A1c reduction of 1.1 percent, with 60 percent of them achieving target levels, versus a reduction of 0.4 percent for Januvia with 30 percent getting to the ADA goal.

Average weight loss with the Lilly drug was 7 pounds (3.2 kg), while Januvia patients lost an average of 3.5 pounds (1.6 kg). The most common side effect reported in the three studies for dulaglutide was nausea, researchers said.

(Reporting by Bill Berkrot; editing by Julie Steenhuysen and Matthew Lewis)