AP - Obama defends plans for direct talks with Iran; McCain campaign says Obama is backtracking ... McCain credits Bush lifting of drilling ban on offshore oil for drop in oil and gas prices ... Economy top issue, but energy concerns grow most as Iraq worries dip in AP-Ipsos poll ... People Magazine: Obama girls offer irreverence, boundless energy

AP - The European Union proposed an import ban Wednesday on products derived from seals that are killed in a cruel way, a move that could hurt the annual seal hunt in Canada — the largest in the world.

AFP - Hurricane Dolly slammed onto South Padre Island, Texas, near the Mexico border, Wednesday as a powerful category two storm, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

AFP - The belief that dinosaurs underwent explosive species diversification just before they were wiped out is an illusion, for the beasts' main evolutionary shifts took place millions of years before, a study says.

AFP - Tropical Storm Dolly grew into a category one hurricane Tuesday as it headed toward the US-Mexican border, forcing the evacuation of thousands in Mexico while the US Navy sheltered aircraft.

LiveScience.com - A college student's new discovery of fossils collected in the East Antarctic suggests that the frozen polar cap was once a much balmier place. The well-preserved fossils of ostracods, a type of small crustaceans, came from the Dry Valleys region of Antarctica's Transantarctic Mountains and date from about 14 million years ago. The fossils were a rare find, showing all of the ostracods' soft anatomy in 3-D. The fossils were discovered by Richard Thommasson during screening of the sediment in research team member Allan Ashworth's lab at North Dakota State University. ...

AFP - Leading oil and gas producers Russia and Venezuela will coordinate energy policies, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday after meeting his Venezuelan counterpart Hugo Chavez.

AFP - The World Wildlife Fund on Tuesday criticised the European Union's illegal wood imports, singling out Finland as the top offender and calling for EU-wide legislation to tackle the issue.

Reuters - Tropical Storm Dolly intensified over the western Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday as it bore down on southern Texas, but forecasters don't expect it to pack too much of a punch when it comes ashore near the Mexican border as a hurricane on Wednesday.