AP - Wall Street dived sharply lower Thursday, sending the Dow Jones industrials down over 300 points as retailers and the Labor Department added to the mountain of dismal economic news that has all but dashed investors' hopes for a late-year recovery.

AP - Some Southeastern states declared emergencies and officials urged residents to head inland Thursday as Tropical Storm Hanna headed toward the Atlantic coast, where it could bring high winds and rain from South Carolina all the way to Maine.

AP - Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to felony charges Thursday in a sex scandal, forcing him out of office after months of defiantly holding onto his job leading the nation's 11th-largest city. He was ordered jailed for four months and fined $1 million.

AP - John McCain embarks on his final drive for the White House Thursday night, accepting the Republican presidential nomination and addressing the party's national convention from a stage that workers were hastily rebuilding to fit his "town hall" approach.

AFP - Vice presidential pick Sarah Palin emerged from a political maelstrom to capture the heart of a raucous Republican Party , before unleashing a fearsome attack on Barack Obama.

AFP - Vice President Dick Cheney headed to Georgia on Thursday for the highest level visit by a US official since the ex-Soviet state's five-day war last month with Russia.

Reuters - President George W. Bush made a quick visit to Louisiana on Wednesday to survey damage from Hurricane Gustav as New Orleans officials lifted roadblocks to allow tens of thousands who fled the city to return despite widespread power outages.

Reuters - Four regional powers plan to meet in Beijing in the next few days to discuss North Korea's steps towards restarting its ageing nuclear plant that makes arms-grade plutonium, officials said on Thursday.

Reuters - Vice President Dick Cheney said on Thursday that Russia had cast doubt on its reliability as an international partner with an "illegitimate" attempt to change Georgia's borders.

Reuters - A helicopter crashed into an oil rig off the coast of Dubai on Wednesday killing all seven people on board and forcing the closure of the Rashid oilfield, the authorities said.

Reuters - Commodity market regulators are probing whether energy market players are injecting false crude oil supply data into the marketplace, the Wall Street Journal said.