AP - John McCain running mate Sarah Palin sought Thursday to defend her qualifications but struggled with foreign policy, unable to describe President Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against threatening nations and acknowledging she's never met a foreign head of state.

AP - John McCain is mocked as an out-of-touch, out-of-date computer illiterate in a television commercial out Friday from Barack Obama as the Democrat begins his sharpest barrage yet on McCain's long Washington career.

AP - As a gigantic Hurricane Ike steamed through the Gulf of Mexico toward the Texas coast, officials in America's fourth-largest city made a bold decision: Instead of fleeing, residents here would stare down the storm.

AFP - Russian troops laboured Thursday over a tentative pull-out from Georgia as Moscow vowed to strengthen its military after last month's war and turned its diplomatic fire on Ukraine.

AFP - John McCain and Barack Obama declared a truce Thursday in their rancorous White House campaign, joining somber Ground Zero ceremonies on the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 terror strikes.

Reuters - Pakistani forces killed up to 100 al Qaeda-linked militants in fierce clashes near the Afghan border on Thursday, a security official said, as tensions grew with the United States over how to tackle militancy.

Reuters - AIDS remains largely a disease of gay and bisexual men in the United States but also disproportionately infects black women, according to an analysis published on Thursday.

Reuters - A fire on a freight train forced the closure of the undersea Channel Tunnel on Thursday, halting all rail traffic, including passenger services, between France and Britain, the tunnel operator said.

Reuters - Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned the West on Thursday against starting an arms race in Europe by stationing a U.S. missile defense shield near Russia's borders and said there was no basis for a new Cold War.

Reuters - Presidential rivals John McCain and Barack Obama called a temporary halt to their fierce political skirmishing on Thursday in honor of the 7th anniversary of the September 11 attacks.

Reuters - Thousands of people fled coastal areas in the path of Hurricane Ike on Thursday as the storm gathered strength on its collision course with the Texas coast, on a track that would skirt the heart of the U.S. offshore oil patch.

Reuters - Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc's survival was called into question as its chief executive scrambled to sell assets to cover losses from toxic real estate investments, sending shares down as much as 46 percent.

Reuters - In a somber ceremony outside the Pentagon, President George W. Bush on Thursday dedicated the first major September 11 memorial on the seventh anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.

AP - Orlando Magic forward Pat Garrity is retiring from the NBA.