ROANOKE, Va. (AP) - Presidential politics reignited in the wake of natural disaster Thursday, with the candidates beginning their full-throttle closing arguments with new vigor on the same pocketbook concerns that have dominated the campaign from the start.
UNION, Wash. (AP) - A flooding river covered a road in Washington, allowing some migrating salmon to swim across the pavement.
XILINHOT, China (AP) - In a small town in northern China's Inner Mongolia where sheep and cattle easily outnumber humans, Fan Chen paid a Communist Party boss three times an average urban resident's annual salary to become a local police chief.
PHOENIX (AP) - A Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Phoenix home that had been slated for demolition will apparently survive under a new owner.
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - A smog-like haze that hung over part of Alaska's Kodiak Island this week was courtesy of a volcanic eruption - 100 years ago.
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) - Donnie Lee Roberts, convicted in his girlfriend's 2003 slaying in Texas, was executed Wednesday for fatally shooting the woman and taking items from her home to sell or trade to support his drug habit.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Flames from a derailed train car sent people rushing out of neighborhoods and an entire town near Louisville on Wednesday while firefighters tried to douse the chemical blaze that left three workers badly burned.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) - Greece's government on Wednesday outlined the new austerity measures it intends to take over the next two years, a series of painful spending cuts and tax hikes that its international bailout creditors are demanding in exchange for rescue loans.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Brad Pitt has agreed to donate $100,000 to help the Human Rights Campaign raise money for its efforts to support same-sex marriage initiatives in several states.
BEIRUT (AP) - Syrian warplanes fired missiles at opposition strongholds around Damascus and in the north on Wednesday as Turkey, a key backer of the anti-regime rebels, appeared to distance itself from an earlier call to impose a no-fly zone.
LONDON (AP) - His career is in ruins and now an effigy of Lance Armstrong is about to go up in smoke.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Naysayers would have you believe Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm can only mean one thing: Bambi and Mickey Mouse are sure to appear in future "Star Wars" movies taking up lightsabers against the dark side of the Force.
YUMA, Ariz. (AP) - Suspected smugglers who tried to use ramps to drive an SUV over a 14-foot-tall border fence had to abandon their plan when the Jeep became stuck on top of the barrier, authorities said Wednesday.
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court on Wednesday considered curbing police use of drug-sniffing dogs as lawyers argued that using a dog's hypersensitive nose outside a home to indicate the possibility of illegal substances inside amounts to an unconstitutional breach of privacy.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Orange-and-black clad hordes flooded the streets of San Francisco on Wednesday for a ticker-tape parade celebrating the 2012 World Series champion Giants - a Halloween treat made all the more sweet as a repeat performance.
Two major sponsors, Oakley and Nike, distanced themselves from Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius on Monday after the South African sports star was charged with murder in the shooting death of his girlfriend.
Somebody hacked Burger King's Twitter account on Monday, posting obscene messages and changing its profile picture to a McDonald's logo.
Waiting in line for the bus, a Pennsylvania kindergartener tells her pals she's going to shoot them with a Hello Kitty toy that makes soap bubbles. In Maryland, a 6-year-old boy pretends his fingers are a gun during a playground game of cops and robbers. In Massachusetts, a 5-year-old boy attending an after-school program makes a gun out of Legos and points it at other students while "simulating the sound of gunfire," as one school official put it.
PRETORIA, South Africa (AP) - Oscar Pistorius told a packed courtroom Tuesday that he shot his girlfriend to death by mistake, thinking she was a robber. The prosecutor called it premeditated murder.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - The CIA thrillers "Argo" and "Zero Dark Thirty" have won top screenplay honors from the Writers Guild of America.