AP - On the eve of its most ambitious manned space mission yet, Chinese officials introduced the three-man crew Wednesday and said Russian technicians will help guide one of them on China's first spacewalk.

AP - NASA is delaying next month's shuttle launch to the Hubble Space Telescope because of problems stemming from Hurricane Ike and replacement parts for the observatory.

AP - Democrats have decided to allow a quarter-century ban on drilling for oil off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to expire next week, conceding defeat in a months-long battle with the White House and Republicans set off by $4 a gallon gasoline prices this summer.

Reuters - A Canadian researcher has discovered what is believed to be North America's smallest dinosaur, a 70-million-year-old chicken-sized beast that was also unusual for its diet of insects.

Reuters - A powerful typhoon plowed into a densely populated area of southern China on Wednesday, prompting the state Meteorological Administration to issue an "urgent red alert," its highest-level warning.

AP - Scientists will have to wait until spring to use the world's biggest particle collider for groundbreaking research because repairs to damage will run into the laboratory's normal winter shutdown, the operators said Tuesday.

AP - After exploration by millions of visitors over the past 100 years, it's hard to imagine anything left to discover amid the majesty of Yosemite's glacier-cut granite cliffs and giant Sequoia groves.

AP - Albert Einstein's long-lost telescope, forgotten for decades in a Jerusalem storage shed, goes on display this week after three years and $10,000 spent restoring the relic.

AFP - Royal Dutch Shell has formally signed a gas joint venture with an Iraqi state-owned company estimated to be worth four billion dollars, a top government oil official said on Tuesday.