AP - The question of whether Sarah Palin has ever been to Iraq pushed Obama aides Saturday to accuse the McCain campaign of outright lies, distortions and distractions to the American people.

AP - The field of possible buyers for Lehman Brothers narrowed Saturday, but the parties involved in the discussions over the wounded investment bank's future were at loggerheads over how to finance the rescue.

AP - From Florida to Tennessee, and all the way up to Connecticut, people far from Hurricane Ike's destruction nonetheless felt one of its tell-tale aftershocks: gasoline prices that surged overnight — to nearly $5 a gallon in some places.

AP - A passenger jet traveling from Moscow to the Ural Mountains city of Perm crashed near residential buildings as it was preparing to land early Sunday, killing all 88 people aboard, officials said.

AP - A commuter train engineer who ran a stop signal was blamed Saturday for the nation's deadliest rail disaster in 15 years, a wreck that killed 25 people and left such a mass of smoldering, twisted metal that it took nearly a day to recover all the bodies.

AP - Rescue crews canvassed neighborhoods inundated by Ike's storm surge early Sunday morning, racing against time to rescue those who faced a second harrowing night trapped amid flattened houses, strewn debris and downed power lines.

AFP - A series of five synchronised bomb blasts ripped through crowded markets in the Indian capital New Delhi on Saturday, killing at least 18 people and injuring dozens more.

AFP - Gigantic hurricane Ike barreled into Texas early Saturday, bringing a monster ocean surge, knocking out power and flooding coastal areas where tens of thousands remained holed up in their homes.

Reuters - Gunmen kidnapped and shot dead three Iraqi journalists from Iraq's Sharqiya TV station along with their driver in the volatile northern city of Mosul on Saturday, the station and police said.

Reuters - Pope Benedict began a three-day pilgrimage on Saturday at the Roman Catholic shrine of Lourdes in southwestern France after telling a huge crowd in Paris that the modern world had made idols of money and power.

Reuters - Russian troops withdrew from the region around Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti on Saturday, within a September 15 deadline set for the first phase of a pullback brokered by France.

Reuters - China reported a first death on Saturday in a scandal over contaminated milk powder which it blamed for causing kidney stones and making 432 babies fall ill.

Reuters - The death toll in the head-on crash of a commuter train and a freight train outside Los Angeles has risen to 17, officials said on Saturday.

Reuters - Hurricane Ike powered across the densely populated Texas coast and through Houston on Saturday, bringing ferocious winds and a wall of water that flooded hundreds of miles of coastline and paralyzed the fourth-largest U.S. city.

Reuters - At least five bombs exploded in quick succession in crowded markets and streets in the heart of India's capital New Delhi on Saturday, killing at least 18 people and injuring scores more, police said.