CHATHAM, Mass. – The remnants of Hurricane Earl took aim at Nova Scotia early Saturday after a brush with the Northeast that was far less intense than feared, dumping heavy, wind-driven rain on Cape Cod cottages and fishing villages accustomed to nor'easters.

Officials planned to survey the damage from the storm at daybreak, but early reports showed only a few hundred power outages, a handful of downed power lines and isolated flooding in Massachusetts.

Earl swooped into New England waters Friday night as a tropical storm with winds of 70 mph after sideswiping North Carolina's Outer Banks, where it caused flooding but no injuries and little damage. The rain it brought to Cape Cod, Nantucket Island and Martha's Vineyard was more typical of the nor'easters that residents have been dealing with for generations — except this one disrupted the unofficial last weekend of summer. continue reading here

By RUSSELL CONTRERAS and BOB SALSBERG, Associated Press Writers Russell Contreras And Bob Salsberg, Associated Press Writers –

ON BARATARIA BAY, La. – The wildlife apocalypse along the Gulf Coast that everyone has feared for weeks is fast becoming a terrible reality.

Pelicans struggle to free themselves from oil, thick as tar, that gathers in hip-deep pools, while others stretch out useless wings, feathers dripping with crude. Dead birds and dolphins wash ashore, coated in the sludge. Seashells that once glinted pearly white under the hot June sun are stained crimson.

Scenes like this played out along miles of shoreline Saturday, nearly seven weeks after a BP rig exploded and the wellhead a mile below the surface began belching millions of gallon of oil.

"These waters are my backyard, my life," said boat captain Dave Marino, a firefighter and fishing guide from Myrtle Grove. "I don't want to say heartbreaking, because that's been said. It's a nightmare. It looks like it's going to be wave after wave of it and nobody can stop it."

The oil has steadily spread east, washing up in greater quantities in recent days, even as a cap placed by BP over the blownout well began to collect some of the escaping crude. The cap, resembling an upside-down funnel, has captured about 252,000 gallons of oil, according to Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man for the crisis.
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By HOLBROOK MOHR and JOHN FLESHER, Associated Press Writers

Autopsy set after Michael Jackson's sudden death

LOS ANGELES – Michael Jackson, defined in equal parts as the world's greatest entertainer and perhaps its most enigmatic figure, was about to attempt one of the greatest comebacks of all time. Then his life was cut shockingly — and so far, mysteriously — short.

The 50-year-old musical superstar died Thursday, just as he was preparing for what would be a series of 50 concerts starting July 13 at London's famed 02 arena. Jackson had been spending hours and hours toiling with a team of dancers for a performance he and his fans hoped would restore his tarnished legacy to its proper place in pop.

An autopsy was planned for Friday, though results were not likely to be final until toxicology tests could be completed, a process that could take several days and sometimes weeks. However, if a cause can be determined by the autopsy, they will announce the results, said Los Angeles County Coroner Investigator Jerry McKibben.

Police said they were investigating, standard procedure in high-profile cases.

Jackson died at UCLA Medical Center after being stricken at his rented home in the posh Los Angeles neighborhood of Holmby Hills. Paramedics tried to resuscitate him at his home for nearly three-quarters of an hour, then rushed him to the hospital, where doctors continued to work on him.

"It is believed he suffered cardiac arrest in his home. However, the cause of his death is unknown until results of the autopsy are known," his brother Jermaine said.

Cardiac arrest is an abnormal heart rhythm that stops the heart from pumping blood to the body. It can occur after a heart attack or be caused by other heart problems.

ackson's death brought a tragic end to a long, bizarre, sometimes farcical decline from his peak in the 1980s, when he was popular music's premier all-around performer, a uniter of black and white music who shattered the race barrier on MTV, dominated the charts and dazzled even more on stage.

His 1982 album "Thriller" — which included the blockbuster hits "Beat It," "Billie Jean" and "Thriller" — is the best-selling album of all time, with an estimated 50 million copies sold worldwide.

As word of his death spread, MTV switched its programming to play videos from Jackson's heyday. Radio stations began playing marathons of his hits. Hundreds of people gathered outside the hospital. In New York's Times Square, a low groan went up in the crowd when a screen flashed that Jackson had died, and people began relaying the news to friends by cell phone.

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By LYNN ELBER, Associated Press Writer Lynn Elber, Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES – Farrah Fawcett, the "Charlie's Angels" star whose feathered blond hair and dazzling smile made her one of the biggest sex symbols of the 1970s, died Thursday after battling cancer. She was 62.

The pop icon, who in the 1980s set aside the fantasy girl image to tackle serious roles, died shortly before 9:30 a.m. in a Santa Monica hospital, spokesman Paul Bloch said.

Ryan O'Neal, the longtime companion who had reunited with Fawcett as she fought anal cancer, was at her side, along with close friend Alana Stewart, Bloch said.

"After a long and brave battle with cancer, our beloved Farrah has passed away," O'Neal said. "Although this is an extremely difficult time for her family and friends, we take comfort in the beautiful times that we shared with Farrah over the years and the knowledge that her life brought joy to so many people around the world."

She burst on the scene in 1976 as one-third of the crime-fighting trio in TV's "Charlie's Angels." A poster of her in a clingy swimsuit sold in the millions.

She left the show after one season but had a flop on the big screen with "Somebody Killed Her Husband." She turned to more serious roles in the 1980s and 1990s, winning praise playing an abused wife in "The Burning Bed."

She had been diagnosed with cancer in 2006. As she underwent treatment, she enlisted the help of O'Neal, who was the father of her now 24-year-old son, Redmond.

This month, O'Neal said he asked Fawcett to marry him and she agreed. They would wed "as soon as she can say yes," he said.

Her struggle with painful treatments and dispiriting setbacks was recorded in the television documentary "Farrah's Story." Fawcett sought cures in Germany as well as the United States, battling the disease with iron determination even as her body weakened.

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By BOB THOMAS, Associated Press Writer
Photo by Associated Press

Would you believe that Religion can contribute to the success of a nation? Or people in a country with no religion will continue to improve without it? Is it the reason why America have a great recession and economic downfall at the moment? read this article for more infos..

"A wide-ranging study on American religious life found that the Roman Catholic population has been shifting out o of the Northeast to the Southwest, the percentage of Christians in the nation has declined and more people say they have no religion at all.

Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey.

Northern New England surpassed the Pacific Northwest as the least religious region, with Vermont reporting the highest share of those claiming no religion, at 34 percent. Still, the study found that the numbers of Americans with no religion rose in every state.

"No other religious bloc has kept such a pace in every state," the study's authors said."

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Isn't this a good news for American people?? this is an interesting news I read today from yahoo..for more details, keep reading guys..

Obama unveils $75 billion mortgage relief plan

MESA, Ariz. – President Barack Obama says his $75 billion plan to tackle "a crisis unlike any we've ever known" in home foreclosures is necessary to help save the economy.

Obama unveiled the plan in Arizona, hard-hit by the housing crunch. More expensive than expected, it aims to keep 9 million people from losing their homes.

One part will ease refinancing for people who owe more on their mortgages than their homes are currently worth. Another provides incentives for mortgage lenders to help those on the verge of foreclosure.

Speaking at a high school outside Phoenix, Obama said the plan won't save every home but it will prevent "the worst consequences of this crisis from wreaking even greater havoc on the economy."

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WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama promoted an economic plan Saturday he said would create 2.5 million jobs by rebuilding roads and bridges and modernizing schools while developing alternative energy sources and more efficient cars.

"These aren't just steps to pull ourselves out of this immediate crisis. These are the long-term investments in our economic future that have been ignored for far too long," Obama said in the weekly Democratic radio address.

The goal is to get the plan quickly through Congress, with help from both parties, after Obama takes office Jan. 20. The plan, which envisions those new jobs by January 2011, is "big enough to meet the challenges we face," he said. The president-elect said he has asked his economic advisers to flesh out the recovery plan — one "big enough to meet the challenges we face. ... We'll be working out the details in the weeks ahead, but it will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jump-start job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy."

Obama noted the growing evidence the country is "facing an economic crisis of historic proportions" and said he was pleased Congress passed an extension of unemployment benefits this past week. But, he added, `We must do more to put people back to work and get our economy moving again."

Nonetheless, he said, "There are no quick or easy fixes to this crisis, which has been many years in the making, and it's likely to get worse before it gets better."

It will take support from Democrats and Republicans to pass the economic plan, Obama said. "I'll be welcome to ideas and suggestions from both sides of the aisle," he said. "But what is not negotiable is the need for immediate action."

People "are lying awake at night wondering if next week's paycheck will cover next month's bills," if their jobs will remain, if their retirement savings will disappear, he added.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said congressional Democrats will "continue pushing for aggressive but necessary measures. Part of that is passing a substantial economic recovery package, like the one President-elect Obama discussed this morning, that creates good-paying jobs here in America and stabilizes a volatile market."

In a slap at President George W. Bush, Reid added, "We will soon finally have a leader and partner in the White House who recognizes the urgency with which we must turn around our economy, and I look forward to working with him and the new Congress to do so."

The Labor Department reported that claims for unemployment benefits jumped last week to the highest level since July 1992, providing fresh evidence of the weakening job market.

"We'll put people back to work rebuilding our crumbling roads and bridges, modernizing schools that are failing our children, and building wind farms and solar panels," Obama said. He also made a commitment to fuel-efficient cars and alternative energy technologies "that can free us from our dependence on foreign oil and keep our economy competitive in the years ahead."

Obama pointed to the past, saying that Americans in this country's darkest hours have risen above their divisions to solve their problems, as a hope for the future.

"We have acted boldly, bravely, and above all, together," Obama said. "That is the chance our new beginning now offers us, and that is the challenge we must rise to in the days to come. It is time to act. As the next president of the United States, I will."

AP Special Correspondent David Espo contributed to this report.
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We already know what's happening to America's Economy now. To know more infos read this news courtesy of yahoo.news.com..

WASHINGTON – Wild gyrations on Wall Street, a loss of confidence in the U.S. banking system and worries the economy will be weak for some time are raising Americans' anxiety level.

Against this backdrop, President Bush on Friday was to give the nation a more detailed explanation of what the government is doing to battle the worst financial crisis in more than a half-century.

Despite a flurry of radical actions by the Bush administration and the Federal Reserve, banks in the United States and abroad are still wary of lending money to each other and to their customers. The credit clog is depriving the wheezing U.S. economy of oxygen.

Financial and credit problems have dragged on for more than a year and took a dangerous turn for the worse last month. All the fallout threatens to plunge the U.S. economy — as well as the world economy — into a painful recession.

White House officials said Bush didn't intend to put forward any new policy actions. The president was delivering his address at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce headquarters across from the White House.

Earlier this week, the Treasury Department announced it would inject up to $250 billion in U.S. banks in return for partial ownership stakes, something that hasn't been done since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The government hopes banks will use the capital infusions to rebuild their reserves and bolster lending to customers.

Bush and his top economic aides have repeatedly asked Americans to be patient and give the government's relief efforts time to work. Democrats on Capitol Hill, though, insist another round of economic stimulus is needed.

So far this year, 15 banks have failed, compared with three last year. And Wall Street's five biggest investment firms were swallowed by other companies, filed bankruptcy or converted themselves into commercial banks to weather the financial storm.

At the same time of the Treasury announcement, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. said it would temporarily guarantee new issues of bank debt — fully protecting the money even if the institution fails.

The FDIC also said it would provide unlimited deposit insurance for non-interest bearing accounts, which are mainly used by small businesses to cover payrolls and other expenses. Frequently, these accounts exceed the current $250,000 insurance limit, so the expanded insurance should discourage nervous companies from pulling their money out.

Last week, the Fed and the world's other major central banks joined forces to slice interest rates, the first coordinated action of that kind in the Fed's history. The United States and other top economic powers adopted a five-point action plan last week and pledged to do all they can to stem the crisis.

Even with so many unprecedented steps taken, Wall Street has convulsed. On Thursday, the Dow Jones industrials finished up 401.35 points, after falling 380 points early in the session. A day earlier, the Dow fell a staggering 733 points. The index started the week with a record-shattering 936-point gain.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke warned this week that even if financial markets were to stabilize, the economy would not quickly snap back to good health.

Unemployment — now at 6.1 percent — could hit 7.5 percent or higher by next year. Many analysts predict the economy will shrink later this year and early next year, meeting the classic definition of a recession. Some believe the economy already jolted into reverse during the July-to-September quarter.

Americans are feeling strained as their paychecks shrink and their savings shrivel. That's causing shoppers to cut back, one of the reasons the economy is losing traction. Economic slowdowns overseas, meanwhile, are expected to crimp demand for U.S. exports, which has been a main force keeping the economy afloat.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081017/ap_on_bi_ge/financial_meltdown

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer
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ST. PAUL, Minn. - After two days of silence, Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will step to center stage at the Republican National Convention to prove to delegates that she can help John McCain win the White House despite distracting questions about her family life and qualifications.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, once McCain's rival for the GOP presidential nomination, was to deliver the convention's keynote address Wednesday. Both Palin, 44, and McCain, 72, also were to be officially voted onto the GOP presidential ticket by convention delegates.

Republicans hoped Palin's speech — to be delivered before a nationwide television audience Wednesday night — would sell voters on her candidacy despite questions about her qualifications and the thoroughness of McCain's selection process, to say nothing of the continuing distractions involving her family and her brief tenure as governor.

The addition of Palin to the ticket has excited Republicans here and across the country. She has earned a reputation for taking on entrenched interests in Alaska and is staunchly pro-gun and anti-abortion.

But the stunning disclosure Monday that Palin's unmarried 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, is five months pregnant — and a continuing drip of potentially embarrassing details — had knocked the convention off message before a rousing program Tuesday night.

Speakers extolled McCain as a war hero and maverick senator while blasting Obama as an untested liberal. The 47-year-old Illinois senator is seeking to become the first black president.

"Democrats present a history-making nominee for president. History-making in that he is the most liberal, most inexperienced nominee ever to run for president," former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson said as delegates roared with delight.

Palin, who has been in St. Paul since Sunday but out of sight, has a chance Wednesday to speak above the media din and present herself directly to voters as a strong-willed reformer and a solid conservative with appeal to women, including supporters of failed Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

The convention returned, mostly, to normal Tuesday after its opening session was cut short as Hurricane Gustav bore down on the Gulf Coast. With damage from Gustav relatively light, the political speeches began, with President Bush calling McCain "ready to lead this nation."

Thompson, a longtime ally of McCain whose own campaign for the White House flamed out early this year, tossed chunk after chunk of rhetorical red meat to the delegates.

"Washington pundits and media big shots are in a frenzy over the selection of a woman who has actually governed rather than just talked a good game on the Sunday talk shows and hit the Washington cocktail circuit," Thompson said.

But the media focus on Palin's difficulties won't go away, particularly since Bristol Palin and the unborn child's father, 18-year-old Levi Johnston, were to attend Wednesday's session.

Republicans across the party defended Palin, who in addition to her daughter's pregnancy is under investigation by a state legislative panel over whether she had Alaska's public safety commissioner fired after he refused to dismiss a state trooper who had divorced Palin's sister.

"I haven't seen anything that comes out about her that in any way troubles me or shakes my confidence in her," said former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who ran unsuccessfully for the party's presidential nomination this year.

The prime spot in Tuesday evening's lineup went to Connecticut Democratic-turned-independent Sen. Joe Lieberman — whose vote presently gives Democrats control of the Senate — who enthusiastically endorsed McCain and Palin.

"When others wanted to retreat in defeat from the field of battle, when Barack Obama was voting to cut off funding for our troops on the ground," Lieberman said, "John McCain had the courage to stand against the tide of public opinion."

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Lieberman "can give all the partisan speeches he wants, but as the American people have made very clear, the last thing this country needs is another four years of the same old failed Bush-McCain policies of the past."

By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN and MARY FOSTER, Associated Press Writers

NEW ORLEANS - Hurricane Gustav slammed into the heart of Louisiana's fishing and oil industry with 110 mph winds Monday, delivering only a glancing blow to New Orleans that raised hopes the city would escape the kind of catastrophic flooding brought by Katrina three years ago.

Wind-driven water sloshed over the top of the Industrial Canal's floodwall, but city officials and the Army Corps of Engineers said they expected the levees, still only partially rebuilt after Katrina, would hold. Flood protections along the canal broke with disastrous effect during Katrina, submerging St. Bernard Parish and the Lower Ninth Ward.

"We are seeing some overtopping waves," said Col. Jeff Bedey, commander of the Corps' hurricane protection office. "We are cautiously optimistic and confident that we won't see catastrophic wall failure."

The nearly 2 million people who left coastal Louisiana on a mandatory evacuation order watched TV coverage from shelters and hotel rooms hundreds of miles away. While New Orleans wasn't submerged, there were scores of homes that suffered damage. More than 500,000 customers were without power. In Terrebonne Parish, located in the southeast part of the state, several homes had torn roofs, but winds were still too fierce for officials to fan out and assess how bad the damage was.

Keith Cologne of Chauvin, La., looked dejected after talking by telephone to a friend who didn't evacuate. "They said it's bad, real bad. There are roofs lying all over. It's all gone," said Cologne, staying at a hotel in Orange Beach, Ala.

In the Upper Ninth Ward, about half the streets closest to the canal were flooded with ankle- to knee-deep water as the road dipped and rose. Of more immediate concern to authorities were two small vessels that broke loose from their moorings in the canal and were resting against the Florida Street wharf.

By mid afternoon Monday, the rain had stopped in the French Quarter, the highest point in the city. The wind was breezy but not fierce, and some of the approximately 10,000 people who chose to defy warnings and stay behind began to emerge. But knowing that the levees surrounding the city could still be pressured by rising waters, no one was celebrating just yet.

"I don't think we're out of the woods. We still have to worry about the water," said Gerald Boulmay, 61, a St. Louis Hotel worker and lifelong New Orleans resident.

Mayor Ray Nagin said the city didn't yet know if the vulnerable West Bank would stay dry. Worries about the level of flood protection in an area where enhancements to the levees are years from completion were a key reason Nagin was so insistent residents evacuate the city.

The storm surge in the Industrial Canal on the east side of the city reached 12 feet — the same height as the lowest wall. Officials monitoring the flood protection system relaxed, then turned their concern to the West Bank, where waters could still rise and pressure incomplete levees over the next day as the storm blusters inland.

"It doesn't look like it's going to, like, break," said resident Renee Gilmore, who surveyed her neighborhood near the canal before joining friends for an impromptu neighborhood party.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Gustav hit around 9:30 a.m. near Cocodrie (pronounced ko-ko-DREE), a low-lying community in Louisiana's Cajun country 72 miles southwest of New Orleans, as a Category 2 storm on a scale of 1 to 5. The storm weakened to a Category 1 later in the afternoon. Forecasters feared the storm would arrive as a devastating Category 4.

As of noon, the extent of the damage in Cajun country was not immediately clear. State officials said they had still not reached anyone at Port Fourchon, a vital hub for the energy industry where huge amounts of oil and gas are piped inland to refineries. The eye of Gustav passed about 20 miles from the port and there were fears the damage there could be extensive.

The storm could prove devastating to the region of fishing villages and oil-and-gas towns. For most of the past half century, the bayou communities have watched their land disappear at one of the highest rates of erosion in the world. A combination of factors — oil drilling, hurricanes, levees, dams — have destroyed the swamps and left the area with virtually no natural buffer against storms.

Damage to refineries and drilling platforms could cause gasoline prices at the pump to spike. The Gulf Coast is home to nearly half the nation's refining capacity, while offshore the Gulf accounts for about 25 percent of domestic oil production and 15 percent of natural gas output. But oil prices actually tumbled to $111 a barrel as the storm weakened.

The nation was nervously watching to see how New Orleans would deal with Gustav almost exactly three years after Katrina flooded 80 percent of the city and killed roughly 1,600 people. Federal, state and local officials took a never-again stance after Katrina and set to work planning and upgrading flood defenses in the below-sea-level city.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency had cartons of food, water, blankets and other supplies to sustain 1 million people for three days ready to be distributed Monday — a contrast to Katrina, when thousands waited for rescue in a hot Superdome.

"With Katrina they didn't come and rescue us until the next day," said LaTriste Washington, 32, who stayed in her home during the 2005 hurricane and later was rescued by boat. She was in a shelter in Birmingham, Ala., Monday. "This time they were ready and had buses lined up for us to leave New Orleans."

President Bush, who skipped the Republican convention to monitor the storm from Texas, applauded the preparation and response efforts.

"The coordination on this storm is a lot better than on — than during Katrina," Bush said noting how the governors of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas had been working in concert. "It was clearly a spirit of sharing assets, of listening to somebody's problems and saying, `How can we best address them?'"

Meanwhile, Republicans hurried to turn the opening day of the convention into a fundraising drive for hurricane victims. Presidential candidate John McCain's wife and first lady Laura Bush were expected to address the shortened session and appeal for Gulf Coast help.

Both Republicans meeting in St. Paul and the campaign of Democratic nominee Barack Obama asked supporters to send a text message to a five-digit code that would make a donation to the Red Cross to help victims of the hurricane.

For all their apparent similarities, Hurricanes Gustav and Katrina were different in one critical respect: Katrina smashed the Gulf Coast with an epic storm surge that topped 27 feet, a far higher wall of water than Gustav hauled ashore.

Katrina was a bigger storm when it came ashore in August 2005 as a Category 3 storm and it made a direct hit on the Louisiana-Mississippi line. Gustav skirted along Louisiana's shoreline at "a more gentle angle," said National Weather Service storm surge specialist Will Shaffer.

Nagin's emergency preparedness director, Lt. Col. Jerry Sneed, said residents might be allowed to return 24 hours after the tropical storm-force winds die down.

Other evacuated areas along the coast may be away from home for longer, said National Hurricane Center director Bill Read. The hurricane will likely slow down as it heads into Texas and possibly Arkansas, and those areas could then get 20 inches of rainfall.

Only one storm-related death, a woman killed in a car wreck driving from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, was reported in Louisiana. Before arriving in the U.S., Gustav was blamed for at least 94 deaths in the Caribbean.

In Mississippi, officials said a 15-foot storm surge flooded homes and inundated the only highways to coastal towns devastated by Katrina. Officials said at least three people near the Jordan River had to be rescued from the floodwaters. Elsewhere in the state, an abandoned building in Gulfport collapsed and a few homes in Biloxi were flooded.

The ground floor of the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino on Biloxi's casino row was flooded during the storm surge from Gustav. Hurricane Katrina smashed the casino three years ago shortly before it was to open.

Bobby Tuber, the casino's facility-grounds manager, said the storm put about 30 inches of water in the building but the casino itself, located on an upper level, and was not damaged.

"We're fine. We'll come out all well," Tuber said as he and others used a pump and a large hose to remove the water.

Gustav was the seventh named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. The eighth grew into Hurricane Hanna Monday, followed quickly by the formation of Tropical Storm Ike a few hours later. Forecasters said it could come ashore in Georgia and South Carolina late in the week.

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