AP - Before an enormous, adoring crowd, Barack Obama promised a clean break from the "broken politics in Washington and the failed presidency of George W. Bush" Thursday night as he embarked on the final lap of his audacious bid to become the nation's first black president.

AP - More than 84,000 people have jammed into Invesco Field at Mile High stadium to hear Barack Obama's historic acceptance speech, city officials say.

AP - The spinning core of Gustav bore down on southern Jamaica on Thursday evening after leaving 67 people dead in Hispaniola. Texas and Louisiana put their national guards on standby, and New Orleans said a mandatory evacuation might be necessary.

AP - With Gustav approaching hurricane strength and showing no signs of veering off a track to slam into the Gulf Coast, authorities across the region began laying the groundwork Thursday to get the sick, elderly and poor away from the shoreline.

AP - An oxygen cylinder caused the explosion that blew a car-sized hole in a Qantas jet last month, forcing an emergency landing, air safety officials said Friday.

AP - A former Marine accused of killing unarmed Iraqi detainees was acquitted of voluntary manslaughter Thursday in a first-of-its-kind federal trial that ended with some of the jurors shaking hands and hugging the defendant and his sobbing mother.

AP - Computer maker Dell Inc. said Thursday its fiscal second-quarter profit fell 17 percent, hurt in part by PC price cuts. Both earnings and margins fell short of Wall Street estimates, and Dell shares plunged.

AP - David Duchovny has entered a rehabilitation facility for sex addiction. In a statement released Thursday by his lawyer, Stanton Stein, the actor said he did so voluntarily, adding: "I ask for respect and privacy for my wife and children as we deal with this situation as a family."

AP - An art museum in northern Italy said Thursday it will continue displaying a sculpture portraying a green frog nailed to a cross that has angered Pope Benedict XVI and local officials.

AP - Even for the mathematics major from Clemson, it just didn't add up: How could someone who recently struggled so badly she wanted to quit tennis stay on the court with the No. 1 player in the world?

Reuters - Barack Obama, preparing to take a historic step as the Democratic presidential nominee, launched a sharp assault on Republican rival John McCain on Thursday and promised to reverse the economic failures of the last eight years.

Reuters - Tropical Storm Gustav was blamed on Thursday for at least 68 deaths in the Caribbean and U.S. forecasters said it could hit New Orleans and Gulf of Mexico oil fields as a potentially powerful hurricane next week.

Reuters - Russia faced diplomatic isolation over its military action against Georgia on Thursday, with its Asian allies failing to offer support and France saying EU leaders were considering sanctions.

Reuters - Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc is looking at cutting some 1,200 jobs in its latest round of cost cutting, a person familiar with the matter said, as weak financial markets spur layoffs across Wall Street.

Reuters - An outbreak of an unusual strain of Salmonella that sickened more than 1,400 people and put 286 in the hospital appears to be over in the United States, federal health officials said on Thursday.

Reuters - Top U.S. and Pakistani military officials met this week on a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean to discuss the presence of militant safe havens in Pakistan and their role in Afghan violence, officials said on Thursday.

Reuters - A U.S. appeals court has upheld the dismissal of criminal charges against 13 former executives at KPMG, saying prosecutors violated the defendants' rights by pressuring the accounting firm not to pay their legal bills.

Reuters - Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic is being asked for a second time on Friday to enter a plea at a U.N. tribunal for charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the 1992-95 Bosnian war.

AFP - Barack Obama will Thursday warn that eight years of "broken" politics and "failed" Republican leadership is enough, and issue a call for sweeping change at a "defining" moment of US history.

AFP - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused Washington of manufacturing the Georgia conflict as tensions mounted with the United States threatening to scrap a nuclear deal in protest at Moscow's actions.