His voice shaking, O.J. Simpson apologized in court for his role in an armed confrontation over sports memorabilia and insisted he was merely trying to recover property that had been stolen from his family.

"I stand here today sorry, somewhat confused. I feel apologetic to people of state of Nevada," Simpson began. At times, he appeared to be fighting tears as he spoke.
Simpson, who wore blue jail scrubs to court for Friday's sentencing, did not testify during his trial. He was convicted of armed robbery, kidnapping and assault on October 3 -- 13 years to the day after his acquittal in the killings of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Lyle Goldman.
Simpson's tone became more impassioned as he insisted he never intended to intimidate people or steal property.
"I didn't want to steal anything from anybody," Simpson said, adding that among the items he sought to recover were a wedding ring for his daughter and family photos for his son.
"I just wanted my personal things. I was stupid. I'm sorry. I didn't know I was doing anything illegal. I thought I was confronting friends. I thought I was retrieving my things. I didn't mean to hurt anybody and I didn't mean to steal anything," Simpson said.
Simpson and co-defendant C.J. Stewart face sentences of up to life in prison for their roles in a 2007 confrontation at a Las Vegas hotel.
Attorneys for the 61-year-old former running back are asking for a sentence of no more than six years. But a pre-sentencing report recommended an 18-year term, and District Judge Jackie Glass -- who cut Simpson little slack during the trial -- has wide leeway in passing sentence.
Prosecutor David Rogers told Glass that Simpson was "the ringleader, so to speak, in this case ... he chose to use force and violence to take this property."
"This case could have turned out a lot worse," Rogers added. "Who knows what might have happened, and it's all because of Mr. Simpson."
Defense attorneys, meanwhile, asked Glass for leniency.
"This isn't one of those kidnappings where you have people egregiously detained, tied up, pushed into a safe," Gabe Grasso said.
In court papers filed this week, Grasso wrote that O.J. Simpson was "clearly ... not using good judgment" when he led a group of men into a room at the Palace Station Hotel and Casino to take sports memorabilia from dealers Bruce Fromong and Al Beardsley. But Simpson deserves a lighter sentence as a first-time offender who showed no criminal intent, Grasso wrote.

Rogue FBI agent breaks silence at sentencing

Former FBI agent John Connolly, whose fall from celebrated mob-buster to paid gangland flunky played out in a South Florida courtroom, broke his long silence Thursday in a packed courtroom.
Connolly, 68, denied having any role in a 1982 mob hit, telling the family of slain businessman John Callahan: "It's heart breaking to hear what happened to your father, and to your husband ... My heart is broken when I hear what you say."
He then denied having anything to do with the slaying.
Connolly is in court in Miami for sentencing. He was convicted last month of second-degree murder in the 1982 slaying of Callahan, an executive with World Jai-Alai. Callahan's bullet-pocked body was found in the trunk of a Cadillac parked at Miami International Airport.
Connolly's testimony followed that of several other witnesses, including members of Callahan's family, as well as a former FBI agent who testified on behalf of his former colleague.
Callahan's son, Patrick, read letters that he, his sister, and his mother wrote. He said that his mother considered his father "the love of my life" for 23 years.
Former FBI agent Billy Reagan told the court: "John had nothing to do with these murders, your honor.".
During the two-month trial, jurors heard that Connolly had told his mob connections that Callahan, 45, was a potential witness against them, setting him up for the gangland-style execution.
Connolly has continued to deny playing any role in the Callahan hit, most recently in a jailhouse interview published Thursday in The Boston Globe. He faces 30 years to life at his sentencing.
"I did not commit these crimes I was charged with," Connolly told the newspaper. "I never sold my badge. I never took anybody's money. I never caused anybody to be hurt, at least not knowingly, and I never would."
According to testimony at his trial, Connolly was co-opted by the very gangsters he was supposed to be pursuing -- members of South Boston's notorious Winter Hill gang. His story is said to be the inspiration for the character played by Matt Damon in the 2006 Martin Scorsese movie, "The Departed."
Connolly's sordid tale has been closely followed in New England, where he grew up in Boston's "Southie" neighborhood, the same area long dominated by the Winter Hill gang and its notorious leader, James" Whitey" Bulger. Sought in 19 slayings, Bulger is the FBI's second most-wanted fugitive.
During the first two decades of his FBI career, Connolly won kudos in the bureau's Boston office, cultivating informants against New England mobsters. Prosecutors said Connolly was corrupted by his two highest-ranking snitches: Bulger and Stephen ''The Rifleman'' Flemmi.
Connolly retired from the FBI in 1990 and later was indicted on federal racketeering and other charges stemming from his long relationship with Bulger and Flemmi. He was convicted of racketeering in 2002 and was serving a 10-year federal prison sentence when he was indicted in 2005 in the Callahan slaying.
During testimony, jurors heard that Connolly was on the mob payroll, collecting $235,000 from Bulger and Flemmi while shielding his mob pals from prosecution and leaking the identities of informants.
The prosecution's star witnesses at the Miami trial were Flemmi, who is now in prison, and mob hit man John Martorano, who has admitted to 20 murders, served 12 years in prison and is now free.
Callahan, who often socialized with gangsters, had asked the gang to execute Oklahoma businessman Roger Wheeler over a business dispute, according to testimony. Martorano killed Wheeler in 1981 on a golf course, shooting him once between the eyes, prosecutors said.
After Connolly told Bulger and Flemmi that Callahan was going to implicate them in the slaying, Martorano was sent to do away with Callahan, prosecutors said.
But one star witness did not testify -- the former FBI agent who inspired the 1997 film "Donnie Brasco." He refused to take the stand after the judge denied his request to testify anonymously.

Nanny credited with tot's daring rescue

A 2-year-old survived an attack that took the lives of his parents, thanks to a quick-thinking nanny who grabbed the boy and dashed past gunmen to safety.
It could be called one of the miracles of last week's tragedy in Mumbai, India. Two-year-old Moshe Holtzberg and nanny Sandra Samuel were the only ones to make it out of the Chabad House alive after gunmen stormed the house, killing Chabad House directors Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, and four others.
Rivka Holtzberg, who arrived in Mumbai with her husband five years ago to serve the city's small Jewish community, was pregnant, her father said at her funeral Tuesday, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.
Those at the Chabad House were among 179 people killed last week when gunmen targeted several sites across Mumbai, including two luxury hotels, a train station and a hospital.
As the siege at the Chabad House began, Samuel heard the commotion, locked the doors and hid in a room.

Obama pledges to work with governors on economy

Plagued by rising unemployment, falling tax revenue and increased demand for state services, the nation's governors met with President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday to press for federal money to ease their fiscal strain.
Obama and Biden told those at the National Governors Association meeting that the federal government needs to build a deeper relationship with the governors in order to put America on the path to long-term prosperity.
"Change is not going to come from Washington alone," Obama said.
"It's going to come from all of you. It will come from a White House and statehouses all across the country that are working together, and that's the kind of partnership I that I intend to forge as president of the United States," Obama said at the conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. "I hope that this is the beginning of laying that foundation."
Obama said he wants the governors to help draft his economic plan instead of just helping to implement it.
"If we're listening to the governors, then the money that we spend is going to be well spent, and it means that it's going to get working faster and the people in your states are going to experience prosperity sooner," Obama said.
The national governors' meeting comes a day after the National Bureau of Economic Research officially declared the United States' economy to be in a recession.
The governors are asking the president-elect for federal money to help them get their states back on track.
Obama and congressional Democrats have pledged to pass an economic stimulus package when Obama takes office in January. House Democrats said Monday that they will push for an economic recovery package of up to $500 billion.

Obama rolls out national security team

President-elect Barack Obama on Monday announced Sen. Hillary Clinton as his pick for secretary of state, calling her an "American of tremendous stature who will have my complete confidence."
"Hillary's appointment is a sign to friend and foe of the seriousness of my commitment to renew American diplomacy and restore our alliances," Obama said at a news conference in Chicago, Illinois. "I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton is the right person to lead our State Department and to work with me in tackling this ambitious foreign policy agenda."
Obama also confirmed that he is keeping Defense Secretary Robert Gates in his current post.
Rounding out his Monday announcements, Obama named retired Marine Gen. Jim Jones as his national security adviser, Eric Holder as attorney general, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as homeland security secretary and Susan Rice as ambassador to the United Nations.
"I am confident that this team is what we need to make a new beginning for American national security," Obama said.

Dip in Thanksgiving travelers doesn't mean smooth sailing

Fewer Americans are expected to travel for Thanksgiving this year, but those who are taking to the roads and skies still are likely to face congestion.

About 41 million Americans will travel at least 50 miles from home around the holiday, according to AAA auto club. That figure is down 1.4 percent from last year, meaning 600,000 fewer travelers. The dip represents the first decline in travelers since 2002.
"I think with the economy going downward, people are holding off on traveling," AAA spokeswoman Christie Hyde said, noting that the largest drop this Thanksgiving is in flying.
The Air Transport Association of American is projecting a 10 percent decrease in the number of air passengers flying over a 12-day period around the holiday, but airline capacity cuts prompted by record-high fuel prices over the summer mean planes will remain crowded.
The ATA expects planes to be close to 90 percent full, on average, on the busiest travel days.
"You'll see plenty of people on airplanes that are full," ATA spokesman David Castelveter said.
He urges air travelers to arrive at the airport early, be prepared to go through security checkpoints and travel light, as space in overhead compartments and underneath seats will be limited. Ball State University student Katie Dorsey, 21, will be flying out of Indianapolis' new airport for the first time. She usually makes the trip to Orlando, Florida, to visit her father a couple times a year.
"I know they have more TSA checkpoint lanes, so it should be faster getting through security, but I'm not sure as far as lines," Dorsey said of the new airport. "I'm going to try to get there at least two hours before my flight this time."
Last week the TSA expanded its family lane program to every security checkpoint. Families, individuals who are unfamiliar with security procedures, travelers with special needs and those carrying medically necessary liquids in amounts exceeding the TSA's allowances can use these lanes to get through security at their own pace.

Obama says budget reform 'a necessity'

President-elect Barack Obama pledged Tuesday to go through the federal budget "page by page, line by line" to eliminate excessive spending and get the economy back on track.
"If we are going to make the investments we need, we also have to be willing to shed the spending that we don't need," Obama said at a news conference in Chicago, Illinois.
"In these challenging times, when we're facing both rising deficits and a sinking economy, budget reform is not an option. It's a necessity," he said.
Obama also said that he has selected Peter Orszag as his nominee for director of the Office of Management and Budget.
Orszag, the head of the Congressional Budget Office, is an expert on health care, pensions and Social Security policy. He worked at the Clinton White House as special assistant to the president at the National Economic Council and served on the Council of Economic Advisers.
The move comes a day after the president-elect announced key members of his economic team, including New York Federal Reserve President Tim Geithner as his choice for treasury secretary and former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers as his selection for chief of the National Economic Council.
Obama said Tuesday that there will be more announcements as he fleshes out the rest of his economic team.

Huckabee tells Republicans how to recover

If the Republican Party wants to get back on track, former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee says GOP leaders must first restore voters' confidence in the government.
"People will forgive you for being a little left or a little right, but they won't forgive you for not taking them up instead of down," he told CNN in between appearances on his 56-city tour to promote his new book, "Do the Right Thing: Inside the Movement That's Bringing Common Sense Back to America."
Huckabee said Republicans have lost their reputation as people who believe in curtailing spending and attempting to balance the budget and have a new label: the "budget busters," who spend more than they can pay back while priding themselves in not raising taxes.
"But it's not that they do it by curbing spending, they just kick the can down the road and put the burden on our grandchildren," he said, adding that he considers it "morally wrong" to indebt future generations.

Obama aides say Clinton 'on track' for secretary of state job

President-elect Obama is on track to nominate Sen. Hillary Clinton as his secretary of state after Thanksgiving.
Clinton senior adviser Philippe Reines repeated a statement that "any and all speculation about Cabinet or other administration appointments is for President-Elect Obama's transition team to address."
CNN also has learned that Obama is getting foreign policy advice from an unlikely source: Republican Brent Scowcroft, who was national security adviser in the first Bush administration.
Two sources familiar with the conversations confirm to CNN that Obama reached out to Scowcroft for phone chats even before he ran for president, and the back-and-forth has continued in recent days as the president-elect assembles his Cabinet.
Scowcroft is very close to current Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who is rumored to be in the running to stay in the Cabinet for at least an interim period at the start of the new Obama administration.
During a recent appearance on CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS," Scowcroft said it would be a wise move for Obama to keep Gates in the Cabinet.
"I actually think it would send the kind of signal that I think the president-elect intends, or spoke about in his campaign, and that is that we need to work together. We need to work as Americans," Scowcroft said. "And I think giving Bob Gates some more time to do the kinds of things he's doing would be a very wise course of action."
But a senior Obama aide told CNN not to see the conversations as a signal that Gates may keep his job. "Don't read anything into this -- he was an admirer [of Scowcroft] long before running or even needing to select" a secretary of defense, the Obama aide said.
The Obama aide said the president-elect "respects and admires Gen. Scowcroft's bipartisan, pragmatic approach to foreign policy," adding that Obama "looks forward to continuing the dialogue with Gen. Scowcroft -- as well as other key Republicans, Democrats and independents -- to get the very best advice."
Scowcroft, who opposed the war in Iraq, is a fierce critic of the current Bush administration's approach.
"I think we developed in the Republican Party a -- well, you know, the buzzword for it is "neoconism,' " Scowcroft said on CNN earlier this month. "But I think what it is, it's an ideology -- it's really an idealistic approach to things. But it's a combination of idealism and, if you will, brute force."
On Thursday, former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle told CNN that he is excited about the possibility of heading the Department of Health and Human Services in the Obama administration, where he would be the point person in helping to reform the nation's health care system.
Three sources close to Obama's transition team told CNN on Wednesday that the president-elect's choice to lead HHS is the former senator, if he passes the vetting process.
Daschle himself is on the health care advisory group of Obama's transition team.

Big Three auto CEOs flew private jets to ask for taxpayer money

Some lawmakers lashed out at the CEOs of the Big Three auto companies Wednesday for flying private jets to Washington to request taxpayer bailout money.
"There is a delicious irony in seeing private luxury jets flying into Washington, D.C., and people coming off of them with tin cups in their hand, saying that they're going to be trimming down and streamlining their businesses," Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-New York, told the chief executive officers of Ford, Chrysler and General Motors at a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee.
"It's almost like seeing a guy show up at the soup kitchen in high hat and tuxedo. It kind of makes you a little bit suspicious."
He added, "couldn't you all have downgraded to first class or jet-pooled or something to get here? It would have at least sent a message that you do get it."
The executives -- Alan Mulally of Ford, Robert Nardelli of Chrysler and Richard Wagoner of GM -- were seeking support for a $25 billion loan package. Later Wednesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid reversed plans to hold a test vote on the measure.
An aide told CNN that Reid decided to cancel the test vote when it became clear the measure would fall well short of the 60 votes needed. Reid did, however, make a procedural move that could allow a vote on a compromise, which several senators from auto-producing states were feverishly trying to craft.
At Wednesday's hearing, Rep. Brad Sherman, D-California, pressed the private-jet issue, asking the three CEOs to "raise their hand if they flew here commercial."
"Let the record show, no hands went up," Sherman said. "Second, I'm going to ask you to raise your hand if you are planning to sell your jet in place now and fly back commercial. Let the record show, no hands went up."
The executives did not specifically respond to those remarks. In their testimony, they said they are streamlining business operations in general.

Bill Clinton agrees to vetting

A major obstacle in Sen. Hillary Clinton's path to becoming President-elect Barack Obama's Secretary of State may be out of the way, as former President Bill Clinton has made several concessions to help move his wife's vetting process along.
A source familiar with the discussions between Hillary Clinton and the president-elect confirms to CNN that the former president will release the names of several major donors to the Clinton Foundation as well as submit future foundation activities and paid speeches to a strict ethics review.
In addition, the former president is offering to step down from his day-to-day responsibilities at the foundation and inform the State Department of his speaking schedule and any new sources of income.
Clinton said Wednesday that he would do whatever was asked of him in regards to the vetting process.
"Whatever they want, this is a deal between president-elect and Hillary and you should talk to them, but I'll do whatever they want," he said. "We're both committed, completely committed to his success so that's for them to work out. Whatever they do, I'll support."
President Clinton's international and financial dealings with his foundation and presidential library have been a sticking point with an Obama camp worried that Sen. Clinton's position in the cabinet could create a potential conflict of interest as the country's top diplomat.

Ford CEO on bailout opposition: Past is past

Ford Motor Company chief executive Alan Mulally defended his company Tuesday against charges that Ford caused its own problems and said bailing out Detroit was essential to the U.S. economic recovery.
Hours before Mulally and other heads of the Big Three automakers were scheduled to testify before the Senate Committee on Housing, Banking and Urban Affairs, Mulally appeared on CNN's "American Morning" to discuss his expected testimony.
Mulally told CNN's John Roberts that Ford took time to develop an electric hybrid car because its top priority was making the internal combustion engine more efficient. He also defended the company's advertising blitz for the F-150 pickup truck and said the company had been working on improving its fuel efficiency long before there was talk of bailing out Ford, General Motors and Chrysler.

Citigroup to cut more than 50,000 jobs

Citigroup said Monday it planned to cut more than 50,000 jobs, the latest move by the struggling bank to cut costs in order to weather the credit crisis plaguing Wall Street.
In an investor presentation on its Web site, the company said it would reduce its workforce to approximately 300,000 employees. As of the end of September, the New York City-based bank had about 352,000 employees.
This would be a 20% reduction in Citigroup's staff from their peak levels late last year.
Roughly half of those jobs would come as a result of recent division sales, including the sale of the company's German retail banking division. A Citigroup spokesperson said the remainder would touch all divisions of the company, both domestically and internationally.
Last week, there was speculation that the company's investment banking and wealth management divisions would feel the brunt of the cuts.
Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit, who was appointed last December, addressed the job cuts at an employee town hall meeting held Monday morning.
In a memo to company employees Monday, Pandit asked workers to remain committed to their clients and customers ahead of what is expected to be a difficult 2009. "Citi needs you to maintain your focus on helping them succeed because now is the time when lasting loyalty is earned," he wrote.
Most of the cuts are expected to take place by year end before trailing off sometime in 2009. What remains unclear is whether more layoffs could follow. The company described the cuts as a "near-term" target.
Citigroup's announcement is the latest blow to an already reeling labor market. Nearly 1.2 million jobs have been lost this year and the unemployment rate hit a more than 14-year high of 6.5% in October.
And according to figures from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Citigroup's job cuts rank among the largest since Challenger began tracking layoffs in 1993. IBM announced job cuts of 60,000 workers in July 1993 while retailer Sears announced 50,000 job cuts in January 1993.

Obama, Clinton meet to talk about her future

President-elect Barack Obama met with his former rival Sen. Hillary Clinton to see if she would be interested in a role in his administration.

Obama also will meet with the man he defeated in the general election, Republican Sen. John McCain, on Monday, the Obama transition team announced Friday.
Clinton went to the meeting because "she knew Obama wanted to talk about whether she would have a role in the administration," one of the sources knowledgeable about the meeting said.
Obama and Clinton met in Chicago, Illinois, at the request of the president-elect.
The two sources said Clinton was surprised to hear the rumors about the secretary of state position. The sources could not confirm that the two discussed the nation's top diplomatic position or that it was offered.

This is not the first time Clinton has been rumored to be under consideration for a position on Obama's team.
The New York senator was said to be on Obama's short list of possible vice presidential picks this summer, but Obama ended up picking Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware.
That source said Clinton thought the speculation that she would be tapped to be Obama's secretary of state was "silly" because of the earlier buzz about her becoming Obama's running mate.

Jobless claims highest since Sept. 11 attacks

Unemployment filings surge to 516,000, number of Americans continuing on benefits at 25-year high.

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment insurance last week surged to the highest levels since the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and the number of people continuing to collect benefits rose to a 25-year high, the government said Thursday.
The U.S. Department of Labor reported that initial filings for state jobless benefits reached 516,000 for the week ended Nov. 8. That's the highest total since the week ended Sept. 29, 2001, two weeks after the attacks against New York and Washington, when 517,000 initial claims were filed.
Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected 479,000 claims. This week, jobless filings increased by 32,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 484,000. Last year, the figure stood at 338,000.
The report is troubling because many economists expected jobless claims to hold from the week prior, according to Andrew Gledhill, economist at Moody's Economy.com.
"The labor market is deteriorating more rapidly than previously thought," he said.
He expects weekly claims to remain above 500,000 for at least six months, due to the breadth of job losses that are being reported.
The high number of Americans continuing to collect unemployment shows that hiring conditions are poor, according to Andrew Gledhill, economist at Moody's Economy.com.
The number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits for one week or more surged by 65,000 to 3,897,000, the highest level since January 1983. The data comes from the week ended Nov. 1, the most recent available. At this time last year, the figure was 2,587,000. The Bush administration weighed in on the jobless claim numbers.
"We know this is a tough time for many people and that's why this administration is focused on dealing with the financial situation across the board ... To get the economy moving and create jobs," according to Gordon Johndroe, a deputy press secretary.
The four-week moving average of unemployment claims, used to smooth fluctuations in the data, increased by 13,250 to 491,000 from the previous week's average of 477,750. A reading above 400,000 has been present during the past two recessions.
Ohio and Michigan, suffering from job losses related to the troubled U.S. automobile industry, reported the largest increases in initial claims.
The layoffs in those states are not likely to be reversed in coming months, Gledhill said. "Vehicle sales have been falling off a cliff, and that's not going to be reversed anytime soon."
Extended benefits were available in North Carolina and Rhode Island during the week ended Oct. 25, according to the report.
U.S. job losses have been mounting for months. Last week, the Labor Department reported the economy lost 240,000 jobs in October, bringing the total number of jobs shed in 2008 to nearly 1.2 million. The unemployment rate rose to 6.5%, a 14-year high, last month.
President-elect Barack Obama has put forth a few economic stimulus proposals, which may gain bipartisan support.
Some of his ideas include temporarily exempting the unemployed from having to pay income tax on their unemployment benefits, extending unemployment benefits, spending more on infrastructure to create jobs, and temporary tax credits for businesses that create jobs in the United States.
In the past week, Ford (F, Fortune 500) said it would cut salaried employment costs by 10%, global delivery company DHL said it was cutting 9,500 jobs and financial service provider Fidelity Investment announced 1,300 job cuts.

Obama administration to ratchet up hunt for bin Laden

President-elect Barack Obama wants to renew the U.S. commitment to finding al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to his national security advisers.

The Obama team believes the Bush administration has downplayed the importance of catching the FBI's most-wanted terrorist because it has not been able to find him.
"We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority," Obama said during the presidential debate on October 7.
But tracking down bin Laden won't be easy.
In May, al Qaeda released an audiotape featuring bin Laden. But U.S. intelligence officials say they haven't had a solid lead on the terrorist mastermind's whereabouts since late 2001, when he was nearly captured in a battle with U.S. forces near Tora Bora, Afghanistan.
Robert Baer, a former CIA field officer, told CNN he's talked to "a dozen CIA guys who've been on the hunt for him, and half of them told me they assumed he was dead, the other half said they assumed he was alive, but the key word here is assume. They don't know."

Intelligence officials believe bin Laden is hiding in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan, a remote and primitive region with mountain peaks as tall as 14,000 feet (4,270 meters) that make the terrain difficult to navigate.
"If you think of this as sort of a combination of [the hunt for] Eric Rudolph, who was the Olympic bomber, and the movie 'Deliverance,' multiplied by a factor of 10, that's really what you're focusing on in trying to find bin Laden," said Robert Grenier, the former CIA station chief in Pakistan.

What Obama should do with Biden

Now that he is president-elect, Barack Obama must start thinking about what to do with Joe Biden.
Vice presidents have had very different roles in recent decades, particularly as the power of the office increased.
During the past eight years, we have watched Dick Cheney expand the influence of the vice president into virtually the policymaker-in-chief with his unprecedented role in shaping the war on terrorism.
Obama will face a number of herculean challenges starting in January. One of them will be to effectively work with a Democratic Congress where there remain major tensions with the executive branch, as a result of President Bush's aggressive use of presidential power, and growing divisions among different factions of the Democratic Party.
With the responsibility of controlling united government in difficult economic times, conflicts are likely to flare among Democrats as legislators realize that failure could result in a backlash.
This is where Joe Biden should come into the picture. Along with Rahm Emanuel -- who will be Obama's chief of staff -- Biden should be used by Obama as a point man on Capitol Hill to help twist arms, make arguments and build voting coalitions.

Obama to make first visit to Oval Office

President-elect Barack Obama will set foot inside the Oval Office for the first time Monday as he meets with President Bush to talk about the problems his incoming administration will face.
The meeting between president and president-elect is a historic formality, but it's also a time for serious talks.
The two are expected to discuss "a broad range of issues," focusing on the economy, according to a leader of Obama's transition team.
"It's clear that we need to stabilize the economy, to deal with the financial meltdown that's now spreading across the rest of the economy. The auto industry is really, really back on its heels," transition team leader John Podesta said.
Podesta told CNN's "Late Edition" that Obama will push Congress to enact "at least part" of an economic package before he takes office in January, but said the problems Americans face need short- and long-term approaches.
The president and president-elect also are expected to talk about national security and the war in Iraq.
As Bush and Obama hold their meeting, first lady Laura Bush will give the incoming first lady, Michelle Obama, a tour of the residence.

Ford: Massive loss, job cuts

Ford Motor reported a $3 billion quarterly operating loss on Friday and said it would reduce staff and capital spending in order to preserve its dwindling cash.
Ford said it would cut salaried employment costs by 10% - reducing compensation of its white collar workers by eliminating merit pay, bonuses and the company's matching contributions to their retirement accounts.
But even with those savings, the company said it's likely to lay off more salaried staffers. It also said hourly staff - mostly factory workers covered by union contracts - would be reduced by an additional 2,600 through a voluntary buyout package.
The company, which earlier this year sold brands such as Jaguar and Land Rover, said it would continue to look to sell assets.
Ford Chief Executive Alan Mulally warned that while the company is confident that it is taking the right steps to respond to the downturn, it does not see a quick turnaround in demand for autos in either North America or Europe.
"We believe the downturn in industry volume will be broader, deeper and longer than previously expected," he said during a conference call. Sales volume isn't expected to improve until 2010, he said.
Ford's loss came to $1.31 a share, excluding special items, far worse than the penny a share loss it reported on that basis a year earlier. Analysts surveyed by earnings tracker Thomson Reuters had forecast a loss of 93 cents a share.
The company had a one-time gain of $2.2 billion, related to the accounting of its retiree health care expenses. With that gain, it reported a net loss of $129 million, or 6 cents a share, an improvement from the $380 million, or 19 cents a share, it lost on that basis a year earlier.
While the company did not give any specific guidance on results going forward, Chief Financial Officer Lewis Booth said the current quarter could see a larger increase in losses than seen in the third quarter.
But the operating losses continued to burn through the company's cash position, leaving with its auto operations with only $18.9 billion in cash on hand at the end of the quarter, down $6.3 billion from the start of the quarter.
Concern has been growing that the nation's automakers could run out of cash as soon as next year due to rising losses and high borrowing costs faced by the companies. Ford had been considered to be in the best cash position of the three U.S.-based automakers.
Ford, which saw the volume of its U.S. vehicle sales plunge 25% in the quarter, reported that overall revenue tumbled by $9 billion in the quarter to $32.1 billion. High gasoline prices at the start of the quarter, followed by tight credit, increased job losses and record lows for consumer confidence late in the quarter combined to keep potential auto buyers on the sidelines.
The company disclosed that its fourth-quarter vehicle production would be cut by an additional 40,000 from previous plans. That will leave its quarterly production target at 430,000, down roughly a third from year-ago levels.
Ford said it will move ahead with product development plans for most vehicles, especially for smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles. But it plans to reduce spending on the development of large vehicles and will delay other unspecified vehicles "that will be deferred until industry volumes recover."
Ford also announced it would seek to raise additional cash by using equity-for-debt swaps. But the company's stock has already lost about three-quarters of its value in the last 12 months. Automotive investor Kirk Kerkorian, who invested just over $1 billion in Ford shares earlier this year, has started selling that stake at a large loss and has said he may get out of the company's stock altogether.
Ford (F, Fortune 500) is not the only automaker seeing trouble. Rival General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) is forecast to report a jump in losses in the quarter later in the day Friday. On Thursday, Japanese rival Toyota Motor (TM), which is poised to see its first annual decline in U.S. auto sales, slashed its earnings outlook for its current fiscal year.
The chief executives of GM, Ford and privately-held Chrysler LLC, as well as the president of the United Auto Workers union, met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on Thursday to seek support for a wide-ranging bailout package for the industry. Both leaders voiced support for additional help for the sector following their meetings.
Mulally said he was encouraged by the discussions with members of Congress, but added that Ford isn't counting on additional federal help because it can't be sure of what will be approved. He also disclosed that Ford is also talking to governments in other countries where it has operations as well.
Ford would be willing to discuss granting stock or stock warrants to the U.S. government in return for getting help, Mulally said. No details of such an equity stake in the automaker had been discussed, he added.
Among the topics discussed were a $25 billion loan to fund union-controlled trust funds that would be set up in the coming year to cover the health care costs of retirees and their family members. Shifting about $100 billion of those costs from the automakers' balance sheet to the trust funds was a key concession the companies won from the UAW in the 2007 labor deals.
The discussions also touched upon allowing the automakers to tap into the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street firms and the nation's banks that was passed by Congress last month. Treasury has so far rejected auto-industry inquiries about accessing that pool of money.
The automakers also renewed their pre-election request to double the $25 billion low-interest loan program approved by Congress, as part of energy legislation, to help automakers convert to making more fuel-efficient vehicles in an effort to meet the demands of car buyers and new federal rules.

Emanuel expected to bring 'tough-minded' approach to White House

U.S. Rep. Rahm Emanuel will bring a "tough-minded" and "pragmatic" approach to the White House when he becomes President-Elect Barack Obama's chief of staff, according to people who know the Chicago, Illinois, native.
A Democratic aide told CNN that Emanuel, a former member of the Clinton administration, had accepted the position Thursday.
After leaving the Clinton White House, Emanuel was an investment banker on Wall Street and later was elected to the House of Representatives from a heavily Democratic Chicago district. He quickly rose to become the fourth-ranking Democrat in the House.
It is Emanuel's combination of experiences -- plus his strong personal relationship with Obama -- that would make him a strong chief of staff, said CNN political analyst Paul Begala, a fellow Clinton veteran.
"He has spent more time in the White House than President-elect Obama has. That matters a lot. It is a special place with its own rhythms," Begala said.

iReporters on Obama victory: 'It's history'

Elated supporters took to the streets of Chicago, Washington, Atlanta and other cities across the globe, dancing and cheering for their candidate.
"This is the most wonderful night of my life," said an emotional David White, who grew up during the civil rights movement of the 1960s.
White said he remembers when African-Americans couldn't go to amusement parks and didn't think a day like this was achievable.
"I've seen this country vindicate itself," he said. "I welled up with tears just looking at the turnout ... I just thank God that I was alive to see it."

Obama casts ballot as polls open across eastern U.S.

Sen. Barack Obama hit the polls early Tuesday, as dozens of eastern states opened their polling stations to kick off the historic election pitting the Illinois senator against Sen. John McCain.
Obama and his wife, Michelle, voted side by side at Shoesmith Elementary School in Chicago, Illinois, as their daughters Sasha and Malia looked on. The couple took about 20 minutes to complete their ballots.
"I hope this works. I'll be really embarrassed if it doesn't," Obama told a poll worker as he fed his ballot into a machine.
iReporter Lindsey Miller, 23, said Secret Service agents were checking names off a list and using metal-detecting wands on some would-be voters as they entered the polling place.
"All the agents and stuff was a bit overwhelming for having just woken up," the University of Chicago graduate student said. "A lot of people were in pajamas. I know I was -- not the time you want to be on national TV."

McCain tries to turn must-win states; Obama stays on offense

As they enter their final day of campaigning before Election Day, Sen. John McCain is trying to swing undecided voters in key battleground states, while Sen. Barack Obama is staying on the offensive by campaigning in territory that is usually safely Republican.
In addition, both campaigns are ratcheting up their get-out-the-vote efforts, as election officials predict record turnouts and long lines on Tuesday.
McCain on Monday hopes he can shift enough voters in a handful of critical states to give him enough votes to pull a come-from-behind victory.
He has an uphill climb. There are very few undecided voters left, and McCain will have to sway most of them for him to overcome Obama's lead. The latest national CNN poll of polls has Obama ahead of McCain 51 percent to 44 percent, with 5 percent undecided.
McCain has also lost ground to Obama in the race for electoral votes and needs to win a number of battleground states if he is to deny Obama the White House.

Marine motorcycle deaths top their Iraq combat fatalities

Motorcycle accidents have killed more Marines in the past 12 months than enemy fire in Iraq, a rate that's so alarming it has prompted top brass to call a meeting to address the issue, officials say.

Twenty-five Marines have died in motorcycle crashes since last November -- all but one of them involving sport bikes that can reach speeds of well over 100 mph, according to Marine officials. In that same period, 20 Marines have been killed in action in Iraq.
The 25 deaths are the highest motorcycle death toll ever for the Marine Corps.
Gen. James Amos, the assistant commandant of the Marine Corps, told reporters that commanders are trying to drill down on what "we need to do to help our Marines survive on these sport bikes." "The Marines are very serious about it," he said.

Exxon Mobil: Biggest profit in U.S. history

Largest U.S. oil company surges past analyst estimates to post net income of $14.83 billion.

Exxon Mobil Corp. set a quarterly profit record for a U.S. company Thursday, surging past analyst estimates.
Exxon Mobil (XOM, Fortune 500), the leading U.S. oil company, said its third-quarter net profit was $14.83 billion, or $2.86 per share, up from $9.41 billion, or $1.70, a year earlier. That profit included $1.45 billion in special items.
The company's prior record was $11.68 billion in the second quarter of 2008.
The latest quarter's net income equaled $1,865.69 per second, nearly $400 a second more than the prior mark.
The company said its revenue totaled $137.7 billion in the third quarter.
Analysts had expected Exxon to report a 40% jump in earnings to $2.38 per share, or net income of $12.2 billion, and a 28% surge in revenue to $131.13 billion, according to a consensus of estimates compiled by Thomson Reuters.
Exxon's stock price slipped by nearly 1% in morning trading.
The company's earnings were buoyed by oil prices, which reached record highs in the quarter before declining. Oil prices were trading at $140.97 a barrel at the beginning of the third quarter, and had fallen to $100.64 at the end.
Compare that to 2007, when prices traded at $71.09 a barrel at the beginning of the third quarter, and rose to $81.66 by the end.
Exxon's special charges include the gain of $1.62 billion from the sale of a German natural gas company. It also includes the $170 million charge in interest related to punitive damages from the Valdez oil spill off the Alaskan coast in 1989.
The Irving, Texas-based company said it lost $50 million, before taxes, in oil revenue because of Hurricanes Gustav and Ike. The company expects damages related to these hurricanes to reduce fourth-quarter earnings by $500 million.
Despite the surge in profit, Exxon said oil production was down 8% in the third quarter, compared to the same period last year.
The company also said it is spending more money to locate new sources of oil. Exxon said it spent $6.9 billion on oil exploration in the third quarter, a jump of 26% from the same period last year.
Phil Weiss, analyst for Argus Research, said he doesn't expect Exxon to break any more profit records in future quarters.
"I don't expect the fourth quarter to be nearly as good as the third because of lower oil prices," said Weiss.
He also said that demand for gasoline is falling, which could impact Exxon and other oil companies.
Earlier Thursday, Europe's leading oil company, Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSA), reported a 22% gain in net profit for the third quarter, to $8.45 billion. The company said sales rose 45% to $132 billion.
Exxon is the second-largest company in the Fortune 500 in terms of annual sales, behind Wal-Mart Stores (WMT, Fortune 500).
Exxon's stock price has fallen about 20% so far this year, The S&P 500, of which it is a member, has fallen about 36%.

Battling for votes: Students weigh economics, ethics

Katie Ulrich, a junior at the University of Colorado, is worried about paying for the next two years at college -- and the effect the economic downturn is having on her chances of getting a job after college.
While the 20-year-old native of Huntington Beach, California, has survived on savings her parents established for her at birth, the money has run out -- and that has her looking for new ways to get by financially.
"I've had enough to cover my first two years of college, but this year I have been having to apply for financial aid and loans and the same thing next year," she said.
She said it's hard getting a job because restaurants in Boulder -- and jobs on campus -- are cutting back on employees. Ulrich, who registered to vote in Colorado this year, voted in her first presidential election on October 21.
While at first she wouldn't say who got her vote, Ulrich later said: "I hope Obama wins."
"The person who I voted for has a better plan of getting us out of this [economic] crisis that we're in, and so I took a lot of time to research... both the presidential candidates," she said.
She added: "I really hope we can get the economy turned around. I think it's hard right now as a student because it's fearful to go into our futures without the hope that our economy will be better. We all want job opportunities. We all want the chance to get to have a great future, and with this crisis it doesn't look good. Hopefully, we can get it turned around."

Battling for votes: Small businesses weigh choices

Small-business owner Susan Melching is frightened by the country's economic future.
Melching said this is the first time in 26 years that she is worried her company won't survive.
"This is the first year that I have actually really felt on the verge of 'is it worth hanging in for it?' And it's a very frightening experience. First time ever," she said.
Her company, Susan Melching Inc., provides skin care treatments. Businesses that focus on beauty and luxury goods are usually hit especially hard during economic troubles.
The 53-year-old said she's had to downsize her business by cutting jobs -- from five full-time staff members down to a couple of part-time workers and herself. It's because, she said, customers are simply not coming in as often or at all.
"I'm pretty much relying on myself to get through this," she added. "Everything that I do is focused on keeping the business going. There's not much left for me."
Melching said she'd like the next president to focus on economic policies helping small businesses in small communities -- "financial support in those areas that would in turn benefit the whole country," she said.

Two suspects held, two sought in Arkansas campus shooting

Police are searching for two suspects in the fatal shooting of two University of Central Arkansas students Sunday night, while two other suspects are in custody, authorities said Monday.
The first suspect was apprehended in his car shortly after the shooting, and a second turned himself in, said University of Central Arkansas police Lt. Preston Grumbles.
The four suspects are not university students, he said.
The shooting, which happened outside a dorm, prompted a campus lockdown and the cancellation of Monday classes at the university, which serves about 12,500 full-time students in Conway, Arkansas.
"This is something you pray never happens," a visibly upset Tom Courtway, interim university president, said Monday. "Our campus is safe."
Police said students Ryan Henderson, 18, of Little Rock, Arkansas, and Charvareas Block, 19, of Dermott, Arkansas, were killed. Henderson died at the scene, and Block died at Conway Regional Medical Center.
Martrevis Norman, 19, who is not a student, was treated at a hospital and released, according to Lt. Rhonda Swindle. Norman is from Blytheville, Arkansas, she said. A hospital representative earlier told CNN that the survivor was shot in the leg.

Recession fears batter markets

U.S. stocks slumped on Friday morning, joining the worldwide selloff on fears of a global recession, yet the major gauges managed to fight back from morning lows.
Around 90 minutes into the session, the Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) had fallen 320 points, or 3.7%, after having been down as much as 504 points in the early going.
The Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) index lost 3.8% and the Nasdaq composite (COMP) lost 3.5%. All three indexes were hovering around five-year lows.
"There's a lot of nervousness out there, but I think people are surprised it isn't down even more considering what we were looking at before the open," said Joseph Saluzzi, co-head of equity trading at Themis Trading.
Stocks have been mostly lower this week as the credit crisis, sluggish corporate forecasts and slump in commodity prices exacerbated fears of a steeper slowdown. The weakness hasn't been limited to U.S. stocks, with markets in Asia and Europe tumbling this week as well.

Oprah sued over man's arrest on extortion charge

A Louisiana man has filed a lawsuit against Oprah Winfrey, claiming she and an attorney made false statements that led the FBI to arrest him on charges that he tried to extort the talk-show host.

Keifer Bonvillain, who had the charges dismissed, seeks damages of $180 million from Winfrey, her attorney and the FBI in the federal lawsuit filed Tuesday.
Bonvillain, of Houma, Louisiana, was arrested in December 2006 after he allegedly recorded telephone conversations with an employee of Winfrey's production company and told a company associate he wanted to publish a book based on the recordings.
The FBI said he claimed to have offers from publishers and tabloids ranging from $500,000 to $3 million.
The FBI arrested Bonvillain when another company associate agreed to pay him $1.5 million, wired him $3,000 and arranged to meet him. Bonvillain claims in the lawsuit that he did everything he could to avoid doing anything illegal.
"There was substantial damage done to my name and reputation on a world level," he wrote. "The extent of my damages is vast."
Federal officials agreed to dismiss the charges last year on the condition that Bonvillain perform 50 hours of community service, undergo drug testing and pay $3,000 in restitution.
Chip Babcock, a lawyer for Winfrey's Harpo Productions, denied the allegations in Bonvillain's suit.
"And we know that this whole episode started when the plaintiff wiretapped a Harpo employee in California," he said. "We advised (Bonvillain) that we believe that wiretapping was illegal, and this case will give us an opportunity to determine whether we were right about that."

McCain: Mortgage crisis a 'drive-by shooting'

"Homeowners are the innocent bystanders in a drive-by shooting by Wall Street and Washington," Republican presidential candidate John McCain said Wednesday.
"It never should have happened," he said of the mortgage crisis that has shaken financial markets, and it would not have happened if he had been president, he said.
McCain defended his vote in favor of the government's $700 billion plan to prop up the lending industry, despite his insistence that as president he would cut spending.
"Extraordinary circumstances require extraordinary actions," he told Wolf Blitzer in Manchester, New Hampshire. The interview is to air on "The Situation Room" at 6 p.m. ET Wednesday.
McCain said he will consider a second economic stimulus package if he is elected president.

Man found guilty in murder of couple tossed off yacht, 1 other

A former child actor was convicted Monday of murdering three people, including a couple who were tied to an anchor and thrown off their yacht off the California coast.
An Orange County jury found Skylar Deleon, 29, guilty of three counts of first-degree murder and special circumstances for financial gain and multiple victims.
Deleon's attorney had conceded to the jury from the outset that Deleon was guilty but should not be put to death. The penalty phase of the trial will begin Wednesday.
Ryan Hawks, Tom Hawks' son, called the verdict a "warm up" for the penalty phase.
"It felt like a little tiny piece of the puzzle was put in justice," he said.
Deleon's attorney Gary Pohlson told reporters that he plans to convince the jury to spare his client's life by having Deleon's relatives and doctors testify during the punishment phase about his troubled past.
"He's had a horrible, horrible life," Pohlson said, noting that Deleon's father abused him and later died of AIDS.
Tom and Jackie Hawks were thrown from their yacht in 2004 during a cruise to show the vessel to Deleon, whom they believed was a prospective buyer.
Deleon was also found guilty of murdering Jon Jarvi, of Anaheim, in 2003. Prosecutors had said Deleon met Jarvi in a work furlough program while serving jail time for burglary, and killed him in Mexico after Jarvi gave him $50,000.

106-year-old voter shares hopes, secrets

Ann Nixon Cooper, 106 years old, has seen presidents come and go in her lifetime and has outlived most of them. On a sunny fall morning, she left her weathered but well-kept Tudor home in Atlanta, Georgia, to vote early this time for Barack Obama.
The African-American centenarian remembers a time not long ago when she was barred from voting because of her race. Now she hopes to see the day that Obama is elected as the nation's first black president.
"I ain't got time to die," Cooper said with a smile.
"Even if he didn't win, I was happy for him just to be nominated," said the former socialite. "The first black president isn't that something, at 106 years old?"
At the Fulton County government center, Cooper was greeted by Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin.
"I thought that I would accompany her today to support her, but also to say to all people that this is a choice we have," Franklin said.
"As all Americans, we should cherish the right to vote and take every opportunity we have to vote our opinions. She is an inspiration to me personally, but she is also quite an inspiration to all Atlanta."

Bush defends bailout

President Bush on Friday defended recent federal intervention in the financial system as necessary to ward off a wider economic crisis and said the actions were not just a Wall Street bailout.
"People look at the crisis and say, 'Oh, it's only Wall Street,' " said Bush, addressing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. "I don't think so. In fact, I know that if we had not acted, it would have affected the American people directly."
"If the government had not acted, the hole in our financial system would have gotten larger," he added.
Bush's comments - his 34th public statement on the economic crisis since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in mid-September - came just minutes after the Commerce Department reported that initial construction of U.S. homes fell to a fresh 17-year low in September. Housing starts fell to 817,000 residential units, down 6.3% from 872,000 housing starts the prior month.

McCain comes out swinging, but no game changer

John McCain came out of the gate strong, but Barack Obama gained strength as the night progressed Wednesday in the final presidential debate where each candidate tried to convince voters that he is better equipped to steer the nation through these troubled times.
For McCain, the final result of the debate is not great news. When the sun rises Thursday morning, very little will have changed in the race for the White House.
Obama is leading in national polls as well as in key battleground states. McCain faces a financial deficit in these closing days where expensive television advertising will play a key role in helping the candidates deliver their closing arguments.
Poll of debate watchers surveyed after the 90-minute match-up thought Obama did a better job than McCain by a wide margin, 58 percent to 31 percent. iReport.com: Who do you think won the debate
While McCain was more assertive and clearer in stating his policies in this debate than in the two previous head-to-head meetings, the Republican nominee did not deliver a "game changer" needed to turn momentum back towards his direction.

Candidates hit back hard, fast against online attacks

Barack Obama is not a Muslim, and John McCain did not tell the television show "60 Minutes" he was a war criminal who intentionally bombed women and children in Vietnam.
Joe Biden is not planning to step aside in favor of Hillary Clinton as vice president, and Sarah Palin did not order books banned from the library when she was mayor of Wasilla, Alaska.
But if you have spent any time browsing the Internet this year, you may have read rumors to the contrary.
All these stories and more are being e-mailed to friends and family and posted on blogs.
And they are all false.
Heard that Obama was really born in Kenya and thus not eligible to be president? Wrong.
Heard that Palin was a member of the Alaska Independence Party? Nope, she wasn't.
But these stories are potentially damaging to the presidential campaigns of Obama and McCain, Washington communications expert Ron Bonjean warned, so it is critical to rebut them as firmly as possible.
"Fighting rumors on the Internet takes hypervigilance and a lot of caffeine. Left unchecked, these rumors can get out of control, because perception is fact," he said.
Obama and Palin are the subject of the largest number of e-mails, said Rich Buhler, founder of the fact-checking Web site, truthorfiction.com.
"The last two election cycles, there have been rumors about each of the candidates, but there has been nothing like this election," said Buhler, who has been running his nonpartisan site for 10 years.
"The number of Obama e-rumors has been huge, the stuff claiming that he was a Muslim. There are probably 15 or 20 Obama e-rumors. They have circulated massively," he said.
Buhler attributes the popularity of Obama e-mails to the fact that he is a "phenomenon."
"He is new, he is a threat" to some people, Buhler said. "When McCain named Sarah Palin, she became a phenomenon, so there were immediately a number of rumors about her, and now it's the Obama-Palin hit parade."

Bulls keep running

Stocks surged Tuesday morning, adding to the prior session's historic rally, as investors cheered the Bush administration's plan to recapitalize major banks.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) jumped 363 points in the early going. The Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) index added 3.9% and the Nasdaq composite (COMP) gained 2%.
Stocks surged Monday, with the Dow industrials soaring some 936 points, or 11%, marking the largest-ever point advance for the blue-chip index. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq also hit point-gain records.
Investors reacted to global efforts over the weekend and into Monday aimed at unfreezing credit markets and getting money flowing through the pipelines.
Treasury trading resumed following the Columbus Day holiday, and could give a good indication of whether all the recent interventions are working.
On Tuesday, the Bush administration announced plans to recapitalize U.S. banks in an effort to end the credit freeze that has slammed the global economy. Among the moves announced: a $250 billion investment in nine major banks and a plan for the the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. will back up new senior bank debt for three years.
"These efforts are designed to directly benefit the American people by stabilizing our overall financial system and helping our economy recover," President Bush said in a statement outside the White House.
Overseas markets extended their celebration, with Japan's Nikkei surging to a single-day record gain of 14.2%.
European markets rallied for the second straight day. London's FTSE-100 was up 5.5% in afternoon trading, while Frankfurt's DAX and Paris' CAC-40 climbed by 5%.

Great Depression holds lessons for surviving tough economy

Memories of salvaging and stealing to avoid going hungry are part of the legacy of the Great Depression. Some iReporters say they can't help but look at the current economy and feel the past holds lessons for the present.
Donna LeBlanc of Waxia, Louisiana, says she carries no credit to this day as a result of the frugality and self-reliance instilled in her by her family. Her husband keeps the couple's credit card and maintains a zero balance.
The Great Depression meant scary times for many households as a period of economic downturn spread throughout the world. Historians trace its start to the "Black Tuesday" stock crash on October 29, 1929, and argue that the resulting global desperation set the stage for World War II.
LeBlanc said her grandparents were fortunate that they didn't have investments and could grow or catch their own food during the Depression years.
Her grandfather Lester was a "Cajun cowboy" often seen wearing a cowboy hat, and her grandmother Ida was a resourceful woman who spent much of the 1930s working as a store clerk. LeBlanc, always told never to keep credit card debt, heard frightful stories from Ida.

McCain surrogate raises Obama's past drug use

A prominent surrogate for John McCain on Thursday raised Barack Obama's admitted cocaine use as a teenager and said the Illinois senator should speak candidly about it to the American people.
Speaking to Dennis Miller, a comedian and conservative radio talk show host, former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating said Obama should be more forthright about his background and what he called his "very extreme" record.
"He ought to admit, ‘You know, I've got to be honest with you. I was a guy of the street. I was way to the left. I used cocaine. I voted liberally, but I'm back at the center,'" Keating, a co-chair of McCain’s campaign, said Obama should tell voters. "I mean, I understand the big picture of America. But he hasn't done that."
An aide to John McCain said Keating was not directed by the campaign to make the comments.
"We didn’t ask him to do it,” the aide said. “He didn’t clear it with us, but obviously he’s read Senator Obama’s books.”
The Obama campaign has not responded to the comments.
The remarks ring similar to comments made by prominent New Hampshire Democrat Bill Shaheen, a Hillary Clinton supporter, during the primary. Shaheen, who predicted in December that Obama’s drug past would be a major Republican talking point if her were the Democratic nominee. He later apologized for the comments, but stepped down from his role in the Clinton campaign. Black Entertainment Television founder Bob Johnson, another Hillary Clinton backer, also had to apologize after making overt references to Obama's drug use at campaign rally in South Carolina.
In Obama's 1995 book Dreams of My Father, he writes that he was once headed in the direction of a "junkie" and a "pothead. Referring to his emotional struggles as a young man, Obama writes, "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack, though."
Obama did speak during his primary campaign about his past experimentation with drugs and alcohol in high school.
"I made some bad decisions that I've actually written about," he told New Hampshire high school students last November. "There were times when I, you know, got into drinking, experimented with drugs. There was a whole stretch of time where I didn't really apply myself a lot."

Stocks rebound

Stocks jumped at the open Thursday, as investors welcomed IBM's earnings report and talk that the government could take a stake in troubled banks, in the latest attempt to stabilize financial markets. A rally in European markets helped too. The Dow Jones industrial average, the Standard & Poor's 500 index and the Nasdaq composite all gained in the early going.
Markets have gotten hammered this week, with the Dow industrials shedding roughly 1,600 in the past week. And Wednesday wasn't much better. It was another disappointing session despite a half-point rate cut from the Federal Reserve. Stocks were volatile amid market turmoil in Europe and Asia. The Dow ended trading with a slump of 200 points, or 2%, while the Nasdaq dropped nearly 1%.
The Labor Department said initial claims for unemployment fell by 20,000 to 478,000 in the week ended Oct. 4. That's slightly worse than the 475,000 expected by economists surveyed by Briefing.com.
Much of what had been pushing markets higher was "the IBM effect and a technical bounce from new lows" in the stock market, said Peter Cardillo, economist for Avalon Partners, before the jobless report came out.
On Wednesday, IBM surprised investors by releasing its quarterly results earlier than expected. Big Blue reported a 20% jump in third-quarter profit to $2.05 a share, handily topping analyst estimates by 4 cents a share. IBM also reaffirmed its full-year outlook. Shares of IBM rose 3% Thursday morning.
Cardillo also said the markets could also be getting relief from "a new government intervention by taking a stake in some of the banks."
To help bolster the markets, the Bush administration is considering taking ownership stakes in certain U.S. banks, as part of the $700 billion bailout package that was approved last week, according to the Associated Press.
Also, the New York Federal Reserve said late Wednesday that it is lending up to $37.8 billion to AIG, just three weeks after the Fed extended an $85 billion taxpayer-funded credit line to the troubled insurance giant. AIG recently disclosed that it had already taken out $61 billion of the debt.
Meanwhile, credit markets remain tight as lenders stay wary of taking on any unnecessary risk. Libor, the overnight bank lending rate, slipped to the still-high 5.09% from the previous rate of 5.38%, according to Bloomberg.com data. The 3-month Libor rate rose to 4.75% from 4.52%.
Economy: At 10 a.m. ET, the Census Bureau will report its August sales and inventory statistics for wholesale inventories. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com expect a gain of 0.4%, compared to a gain of 1.4% in July.
Markets, money and oil: The Nikkei closed down about 0.5%, but markets were higher in London, Frankfurt and Paris, rallying after a dismal Wednesday that was trailing the turmoil of the U.S. markets. The U.S. dollar slipped against the euro and the British pound but rose against the yen. The price of oil traded within a narrow range, dropping 32 cents a barrel to $88.63.

Stocks slide after rate cut

Stocks fell Wednesday as investors welcomed the Federal Reserve's emergency rate cut, but remained wary about financial markets.
Credit markets remained tight following the news, with banks continuing to hoard cash. Treasury bond prices spiked as investors rushed to the comparative safe haven of U.S. government debt. The dollar tumbled versus the euro and yen. Oil prices slipped and gold prices rose.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 140 points, or 1.4%, with Alcoa and Bank of America dragging after the two companies reported weak results in the past two days.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index lost 1.2% and the Nasdaq composite lost 1%.
All three major gauges had tumbled at the open, then seesawed through the morning as investors considered the emergency rate cut.
Also in the mix: a surprise rise in the August pending home sales index.
The Federal Reserve, in coordination with banks around the world, said it was cutting the fed funds rate by half a percentage point to 1.5%. The fed funds rate is a key short-term lending rate that impacts loans on credit cards, home equity lines and business loans. The Fed also cut the discount rate, a bank lending rate, by half a percentage point.
This is the latest step taken by various agencies over the past week in an attempt to get banks to start lending to each other again. The Dow has lost 1,400 points and the three major stock gauges have fallen to five-year lows as panicked investors have fled stocks.

Obama gaining in 5 battleground states, polls say

Polls in five key battleground states in the race for the White House released Tuesday suggest that Sen. Barack Obama is making major gains.
The CNN/Time magazine/Opinion Research Corp. polls of likely voters in Indiana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin reflect a significant nationwide shift toward the Democratic presidential nominee.
Obama has made significant strides in New Hampshire, the state credited with reviving Sen. John McCain's Republican primary campaign in both 2000 and 2008.
Fifty-three percent of New Hampshire's likely voters are backing Obama, while 45 percent are supporting McCain. Obama held a lead of 5 percentage points in the last CNN New Hampshire poll, taken in early September.

U.S. bank failures almost certain to increase in next year

Here's a safe bet for uncertain times: A lot of banks won't survive the next year of upheaval despite the The biggest questions are how many will perish and how they will be put out of their misery, whether it's outright closures by regulators scrambling to preserve the dwindling deposit insurance fund or in fire sales made under government pressure.
Weakened by huge losses on risky home loans, the banking industry is now on the shakiest ground since the early 1990s, when more than 800 federally insured institutions failed in a three-year period. That was during the clean-up phase of a decade-long savings-and-loan meltdown that wound up costing U.S. taxpayers $170 billion to $205 billion, after adjusting for inflation.
The government's commitment to spend up to $700 billion buying bad debts from ailing banks is likely to save some institutions that would have otherwise died, but analysts doubt it will be enough to avert a major shakeout. "It will help, but it's not going to be the saving grace" because a lot of banks are holding construction loans and other types of deteriorating assets that the government won't take off their books, predicted Stanford Financial analyst Jaret Seiberg. He expects more than 100 banks nationwide to fail next year. U.S. government's $700 billion rescue plan to restore order to the financial industry.

California may need $7 billion federal loan

California may need a $7 billion emergency loan from the federal government to pay for "teachers' salaries, nursing homes, law enforcement and every other state-funded service" this month, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger warns.
Schwarzenegger gave the warning in a letter sent Thursday to U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
The letter, published in Friday's Los Angeles Times, was written on the eve of an expected vote in the U.S. House on the federal bailout of the financial system.
"The federal rescue package is not a bailout of Wall Street tycoons -- it is a lifeboat for millions of Americans whose life savings, businesses, retirement plans and jobs are at stake," Schwarzenegger said.
California State Treasurer Bill Lockyer issued a statement a day earlier saying because of the national financial crisis, California "has been locked out of credit markets for the past 10 days."
"Absent a clear resolution to this financial crisis that restores confidence and liquidity to the credit markets, California and other states may be unable to obtain the necessary level of financing to maintain government operations and may be forced to turn to the federal Treasury for short-term financing," Schwarzenegger wrote.

Engineer sent text 22 seconds before fatal train crash

A Metrolink engineer driving a commuter train sent a text message about 22 seconds before the train collided with a Union Pacific freight train last month, the National Transportation Safety Board said Wednesday.
The crash killed 25 people, including the engineer, Robert Sanchez, during Friday rush hour in Chatsworth, a northwest Los Angeles suburb.
Meanwhile, the Senate on Wednesday night cleared a rail safety reform bill that would give Amtrak $13 billion dollars over five years, its passage partly pushed by the September 12 collision, according to The Associated Press.
The bill, which passed by a 74-24 vote, will go before President Bush who has not said if he'll sign it. The Federal Railroad Administration told the AP that safety technology mandated by the legislation would have prevented the crash.
The bill adds 200 new safety inspectors and requires technology be installed by 2015 that can slow a train that runs a red light or jumps off track.
The NTSB earlier determined the brakes on the Metrolink train were not applied before the collision and that stop signals at the scene were working properly, said Kitty Higgins, an NTSB member assigned to the investigation.
The bill also limits the hours a week rail crews can work, and prohibits shifts longer than 12 hours, the AP said.
On Wednesday, the NTSB said that Sanchez, 46, sent a text message at 4:22:01 p.m. on September 12, the NTSB said, citing information on his cell phone activity that the safety board subpoenaed from his service provider.

Grenade found in D.C. park

Several homes have been evacuated in northwest Washington, D.C., after a grenade was found at a park. U.S. Park Police spokesman Sgt. Robert Lachance says a maintenance worker found the explosive Wednesday morning at Rock Creek Park. He says authorities determined it's a grenade and a police bomb squad is working to remove it.
Some nearby homes have been evacuated as a precaution, but Lachance didn't know exactly how many. Police temporarily closed 16th Street, a busy commuter route, and two side streets.

Stocks bounce after battering

Stocks bounced Tuesday morning, one day after Congress's failure to pass a $700 billion bank rescue plan triggered a massive selloff that sent the Dow down nearly 778 points, in its biggest single-day point drop ever.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) added 260 points or 2.5% over an hour into the session. The Standard & Poor's 500 (SPX) index rose 3.3% and the Nasdaq composite (COMP) gained 2.8%.
Stocks plunged Monday after the House of Representatives shot down the proposed $700 billion bank rescue plan, surprising investors who had thought that a bipartisan compromise on the deal had been reached over the weekend.
The plan involves the Treasury Department buying up bad mortgage bets from banks, enabling them to start lending to each other again and ultimately defrosting the credit markets. Lawmakers had fought to modify the plan with more taxpayer protections.
However, taxpayers were not entirely swayed, and voter complaints about the plan ahead of the election contributed to House Republicans largely voting against the proposal.

House debates bailout bill

The House started Monday what was expected to be a short debate ahead of a quick vote on a sweeping $700 bailout of the nation's financial system.
The vote comes after lawmakers and the Bush administration finalized legislation following a weekend of high-stakes negotiations over the controversial measure, which is designed to get battered U.S. credit markets working normally again.
"Today is the decision day," said Barney Frank, D-Mass., on the House floor. "If we defeat this bill today, it will be a very bad day for the financial sector of the American economy and the people who will feel the pain are not the top bankers and top corporate executives but average Americans."

Chris Rock: It's simple, vote for the guy with one house

Republican presidential candidate John McCain is just holding on like a boxer before he gets knocked out, comedian Chris Rock says.
Rock, an avid supporter of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama, spoke with CNN's Larry King on Thursday. He said Obama is more grounded with your average American -- not somebody like McCain with "12 houses."
"The other guy [McCain] can lose five houses," Rock said.
"I'll go with the guy with one house. The guy with one house is scared about losing his house."

Bush: Bailout plan necessary to deal with crisis

U.S. President George W. Bush, saying "our entire economy is in danger," urged Congress to approve his administration's $700 billion bailout proposal.
"We're in the midst of a serious financial crisis, and the federal government is responding with decisive actions," Bush said in a televised address Wednesday night from the White House.
Bush pointed out that the collapse of several major lenders was rooted in the subprime mortgage market that thrived over the past decade.
He said passage of the $700 billion bailout proposal was needed to restore confidence in the market.
"I'm a strong believer in free enterprise, so my natural instinct is to oppose government intervention," he said. But "these are not normal circumstances. The market is not functioning properly. There has been a widespread loss of confidence.
"Without immediate action by Congress, America can slip into a major panic."

Got an idea to help the world? Here's $10 million

Got an idea that could change the world, or at least help a lot of people? Google wants to hear from you and they'll pay as much as $10 million to make your idea a reality.
To help celebrate its 10th birthday, the ambitious Internet giant is launching an initiative to solicit, and bankroll, fresh ideas it believes could have broad and beneficial impact on people's lives.
Called Project 10^100 (pronounced "10 to the 100th"), Google's initiative will seek input from the public and a panel of judges in choosing up to five winning ideas, to be announced in February.
Google announced the project live on Wednesday morning.
"These ideas can be big or small, technology-driven or brilliantly simple but they need to have impact," said Google in a press release. "We know there are countless brilliant ideas that need funding and support to come to fruition."
Ideas such as the Hippo Water Roller, which Google cited as the kind of concept the company would be interested in rewarding. Developed in Africa, where it is most used, the Hippo Water Roller is a barrel-shaped container, attached to a handle, that holds 24 gallons of water and can be rolled with little effort, like a wheelbarrow, making it easier for villagers on foot to transport critically needed fresh water to their homes.

Commentary: Pay attention to the children in crisis

With the political season in full swing, much is at stake for America. The economy is in a downward spiral. We have an energy crisis. Our jobless rate is on the rise.
These are the subjects that generate headlines and much debate among the candidates.
But there is an underlying problem that we as a nation have not addressed, a situation that should concern any American with an eye on the future, regardless of party affiliation. It is the crisis affecting our children:
• Nearly 30 percent of this year's freshman class will drop out of high school, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. That number jumps to 40 percent in some urban areas.
• The obesity rate for our kids has gone up by as much as 300 percent since 1980, according to the National Center for Health Statistics, triggering a host of health-related problems, from diabetes to heart disease.
• Young people account for more than 20 percent of violent crimes in the United States, according to statistics cited by Duke University's Center for Child and Family Policy. Violent juvenile crime peaks between 3 and 4 p.m., at the end of the school day.
These facts are grim enough. Factor in persistent patterns of poverty, gang activity, drug abuse and teenage pregnancy, and you have a generation of Americans that will be unprepared -- indeed, unable -- to meet the challenges posed by a complex world.
We expect our leaders to lead. But as citizens, we shouldn't simply sit back and hope that politicians stand up to the test. We can participate in the political process, advocating for policies that will benefit the health, education and well-being of young Americans, because we must do a better job of preparing our youth to lead.

McCain 'deeply uncomfortable' with lack of bailout oversight

Sen. John McCain on Monday told voters he was "greatly concerned" about the government's proposed rescue plan because it gives Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson too much power.
"Never before in the history of our nation has so much power and money been concentrated in the hands of one person," McCain said at a town hall meeting in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
The senator from Arizona said that while he admires and respects Paulson, "this arrangement makes me deeply uncomfortable."
McCain said a high-level oversight board should be created to shepherd the government's proposed $700 billion bailout plan.
Sen. Barack Obama also is expected to keep the focus on the economy Monday. He will discuss his plan to reform the "greed and excesses of Washington," his campaign said.
McCain on Monday criticized Obama for not putting up a plan to address the financial situation.
"At a time of crisis, when leadership is needed, Sen. Obama has simply not provided it," he said.
Obama has said he supports the government's bipartisan efforts, but he said he would hold off on detailing his own fix to avoid "partisan wrangling."
McCain said a bipartisan oversight board would be able to "impose accountability and establish concrete criteria for who gets help and who doesn't."
The Republican presidential candidate said the board should be made up of "qualified citizens who have no agenda." He pointed to Warren Buffett, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg as potential board members.
Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, supports Obama. Romney backs McCain, and Bloomberg is an independent.

McCain wants new agency to fix financial crisis

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain said Friday morning that he would establish a new agency to deal with the U.S. financial crisis that many experts say is the worst since the Great Depression.
That agency, a Mortgage and Financial Institutions trust, would work with the private sector and regulators to identify institutions that are weak and fix them before they go broke.
"The underlying principle of the MFI or any approach considered by Congress should be to keep people in their homes and safeguard the life savings of all Americans by protecting our financial system and capital markets," McCain told the Green Bay Chamber of Commerce in Wisconsin.
McCain said the agency would be an early intervention program to help financial institutions avoid bankruptcy, expensive bailouts and damage to their customers.
McCain's campaign announced his speech Thursday night after Wall Street witnessed the federal government take unprecedented steps this week to stabilize the economy, including the takeover of the insurance giant American International Group Inc. in exchange for an $85 billion loan from the Federal Reserve.
In his speech, McCain blamed the current crisis on "the corruption and manipulation of our home mortgage system" and blasted Congress and the administration for not addressing the problems at the two mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which he said "led our housing system down a path where quick profit was placed before sound finance."

U.S. student, husband among dead in embassy attack in Yemen

Eighteen-year-old Susan El-Baneh and her husband of three weeks died holding hands, her brother said, victims of a terrorist attack Wednesday on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen.
The Lackawanna, New York, native, a high school senior, had gone to the Arabian Peninsula country a month ago for an arranged marriage. She and her husband were in the waiting area of the U.S. Embassy in Sanaa, trying to find out the procedure to bring her spouse back to the United States. Susan El-Baneh was the only American killed in the attack.
Some of El-Baneh's family members, who had traveled from Lackawanna with her for the wedding, heard the blasts of the coordinated terrorist attack echo through the city's walls.
When they called to find out what happened, the relatives were told that 17 people, including the attackers, had been killed, her brother Ahmed El-Baneh told CNN on Thursday. Among them were an unidentified man and his wife.
Susan El-Baneh's uncle rushed to the hospital to see the bodies.
"He just knew it was them," Ahmed El-Baneh said. The couple was still holding hands, he said.
Officials said al Qaeda-linked insurgents disguised as Yemeni forces bombed the outer wall of the embassy, and snipers opened fire on first responders heading toward the scene.

Candidates talk tough on economy as financial fears grow

Sen. Barack Obama tells Americans in a two-minute message that he is the candidate who can fix the financial crisis, while Sen. John McCain says in a new ad he's the one who will reform Wall Street.
The two candidates have been pushing their economic plans all week as voters deal with the failures of major investment banks on Wall Street and fears of a recession.
"This isn't just a string of bad luck. The truth is that while you've been living up to your responsibilities Washington has not. That's why we need change. Real change," Obama says in the ad, which begins airing Wednesday nationally and in battleground states.
Obama gives a brief overview of his economic plan and encourages voters to read it in detail.
"I approved this message because bitter, partisan fights and outworn ideas of the left and the right won't solve the problems we face today. But a new spirit of unity and shared responsibility will," he says.
After a week of being on the defensive, the economic crisis has given Obama an opportunity to go on offense. Most Americans see Obama as better equipped to handle the economy, polls show.
In McCain's new ad, he praises American workers as "the best in the world" and says, "Your economic security has been put at risk by the greed of Wall Street."

General Motors gives the world an up-close look at its new electric car.

General Motors unveiled the Chevrolet Volt electric vehicle on Tuesday, allowing outsiders their first full look at the car GM says will go on sale in 2010.
"The Volt symbolizes GM's commitment to the future," said Rick Wagoner, the company's chairman and CEO.
The Volt will be driven by electricity stored in a large T-shaped lithium-ion battery pack running the length of the car. After charging for several hours, the Volt will be able to run for up to about 40 miles without using gasoline.
GM did not announce pricing for the car, which will have the equivalent of about 150 horsepower and a top speed of 100 mph, the automaker said.
To charge the batteries, drivers will plug a cord into one of the ports just ahead of each of the side mirrors. The cord can then be attached to an ordinary home electrical outlet.
The car will cost "less than purchasing a cup of your favorite coffee" to recharge, and use less electricity annually than a refrigerator. The Volt should cost less than 2 cents per mile to drive on electricity, GM said, compared to 12 cents a mile on gasoline at a price of $3.60 a gallon.
As the battery begins to run down as the car is in use, a small gasoline engine will turn on and generate enough electricity to drive the car about 300 miles.

O.J. Simpson in court for 'bad sequel' robbery trial

O.J. Simpson's robbery and kidnapping trial begins today with the attorneys outlining in opening statements what they expect to prove.
Simpson, perhaps the most notorious criminal defendant in modern history, smiled and gave a thumb's up as he entered the Clark County Regional Justice Center.
Witnesses say Simpson and five men burst into a Las Vegas hotel room brandishing guns on September 13, 2007.
They allegedly made off with pillowcases containing O.J. Simpson memorabilia, signed Pete Rose baseballs and Joe Montana lithographs.
Simpson's defense attorneys are expected to argue that he was merely trying to recover property that had been taken from him years earlier.
A jury of nine women and three men promised they could disregard Simpson's past and solely consider the evidence against the 61-year-old football hero and his 54-year-old co-defendant, Clarence "C.J." Stewart.
Simpson and Stewart are charged with a dozen offenses stemming from an alleged sports memorabilia heist a year ago. The charges include conspiracy to commit a crime, robbery, assault and kidnapping with a deadly weapon. If convicted of the most serious charges, both could face life in prison.

Sea floods Texas island; get out or 'certain death'

Floodwaters surged into Galveston Island neighborhoods Friday morning with the center of Hurricane Ike still more than 200 miles from landfall.
On the Bolivar Peninsula, northeast of Galveston, the Coast Guard was rescuing stranded motorists by helicopter.
A U.S. military official told CNN that Texas anticipates 37,000 people may need to be rescued.
Texas has asked for help, and the active-duty military has 42 search-and-rescue helicopters on standby, the official said.
On Galveston Island, waves washed for blocks inland, the beginning of a storm surge that forecasters warned could reach up to 22 feet and bring "certain death" to anyone who remained in Galveston Bay homes.

New polls show tight races in battleground states

Barack Obama and John McCain each hold slim leads in a key battleground state while the two are statistically tied in a third, according to a new set of Quinnipiac polls released Thursday morning and conducted entirely after the Republican convention.
Obama holds a narrow lead in Ohio (49-44 percent), a state hard-hit by the nation's economic woes but one that hasn't voted Democratic since 1996 and one no Republican has lost and gone on to win the presidency.
McCain, on the other hand, is on top in Florida (50-43 percent), the state that handed him a decisive primary win in January which ultimately led to his party's nomination.

Texans get ready as Hurricane Ike heads their way

Residents along part of the Texas Gulf Coast have been told to leave Wednesday morning after Hurricane Ike left Cuba and began to gain strength in the warm Gulf of Mexico.
Officials in the Galveston area's Brazoria County ordered mandatory evacuation for one ZIP code and for people with special needs, beginning at 10 a.m. CT.
Perhaps more important to many in Texas, dozens of high school football games in cities and towns along the coast were rescheduled from Friday to Thursday night to avoid playing in the storm.

Bush to trim U.S. troops in Iraq by 8,000

U.S. President George W. Bush on Tuesday announced a plan to withdraw about 8,000 U.S. troops from Iraq by February and to beef up the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.
Bush said in a speech on Tuesday morning that improving conditions in Iraq will allow a "quiet surge" of American troops to Afghanistan, where there has been a resurgence of the Taliban and a growth in violence.
The troop cut -- smaller than many had expected due to a desire not to jeopardize recent security gains made in Iraq -- will mark one of Bush's final decisions on a war that has defined his presidency.
Speaking at the National Defense University in Washington, Bush said he is making the move based on a recommendation from top military officers, including Gen. David Petraeus, the highest-ranking U.S. military officer in Baghdad.

Multibillion-dollar experiment to probe nature's mysteries

Deep underground on the border between France and Switzerland, the world's largest particle accelerator complex will explore the world on smaller scales than any human invention has explored before.

The Large Hadron Collider will look at how the universe formed by analyzing particle collisions. Some have expressed fears that the project could lead to the Earth's demise -- something scientists say will not happen. Still, skeptics have filed suit to try to stop the project. It even has a rap dedicated to it on YouTube.
Scientists say the collider is finally ready for an attempt to circulate a beam of protons the whole way around the 17-mile tunnel. The test, which takes place Wednesday, is a major step toward seeing if the the immense experiment will provide new information about the way the universe works.
"It's really a generation that we've been looking forward to this moment, and the moments that will come after it in particular," said Bob Cousins, deputy to the scientific leader of the Compact Muon Solenoid experiment, one of six experiments inside the collider complex. "September 10 is a demarcation between finishing the construction and starting to turn it on, but the excitement will only continue to grow."
The collider consists of a particle accelerator buried more than 300 feet near Geneva, Switzerland. About $10 billion have gone into the accelerator's construction, the particle detectors and the computers, said Katie Yurkewicz, spokewoman for CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, which is host to the collider.
In the coming months, the collider is expected to begin smashing particles into each other by sending two beams of protons around the tunnel in opposite directions. It will operate at higher energies and intensities in the next year, and the experiments could generate enough data to make a discovery by 2009, experts say.