AP - Barack Obama's newly minted running mate will join the Democratic hopeful onstage Saturday at a rally in this capital city where Obama launched his White House bid, a campaign official said.

AP - Tropical Storm Fay rolled ashore in southwestern Florida on Tuesday without much fanfare, but stubbornly hung around like an unwelcome houseguest, maintaining its strength and threatening — once again — to become a hurricane.

AP - A combative Barack Obama said Tuesday that Republican John McCain "doesn't know what he's up against" in this election and challenged his rival to stop questioning his character and patriotism.

AP - Russia took the first steps toward a troop pullback from Georgia on Tuesday but at the same time paraded blindfolded and bound Georgian prisoners on armored vehicles and seized four U.S. Humvees.

AP - Lolo Jones was supposed to take the Olympic 100-meter hurdles title. Other entrants knew it. Jones knew it. Even told herself so right before the start, mouthing, "I can win this race," when she was introduced to the crowd.

AP - Turns out Bigfoot was just a rubber suit. Two researchers on a quest to prove the existence of Bigfoot say that the carcass encased in a block of ice — handed over to them for an undisclosed sum by two men who claimed to have found it — was slowly thawed out, and discovered to be a rubber gorilla outfit.

AP - It's not easy being Bond. Roger Moore, who starred in seven Bond films in the 1970s and 1980s, recounts his days as the dashing super-spy in his upcoming memoir, "My Word Is My Bond," and says things weren't always as they seemed.

AP - Umpires want baseball to take another look at instant replay. Umps said their governing board voted Tuesday to boycott a conference call with management intended to discuss implementing replay and are angry that their concerns aren't being addressed.

Reuters - Sly hints and outright guesses fostered speculation in the U.S. vice presidential sweepstakes on Tuesday as Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain neared their choices of a No. 2.

Reuters - U.S. wholesale prices shot up in July at the fastest annual rate in 27 years, while home builders cut back on construction as they worked through a glut of unsold homes, government data showed on Tuesday.

Reuters - The Kremlin said its forces would pull back from Georgia's heartland by Friday to positions set out under a French-brokered peace plan, amid mounting Western criticism about the slowness of the troop withdrawal.

Reuters - Republican John McCain took his campaign high above the waters of the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, visiting an offshore oil and gas rig and predicting many more like it along the U.S. coasts if he is elected president.

Reuters - Jamaica's yam-powered Usain "Lightning" Bolt hopes to become the first man since Carl Lewis in 1984 to win an Olympic sprint double on Wednesday.

Reuters - Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co said it would close 12 percent, or 92, of its company-owned U.S. stores and cut 600 full- and part-time jobs as the U.S. economic downturn put more pressure on the company.

AFP - Ten French NATO soldiers were killed in a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday, the deadliest ground attack on foreign troops here since the US-led war was launched in 2001.

AFP iactiv - President Dmitry Medvedev issued Tuesday a fresh commitment to withdraw Russian troops from Georgia as NATO-Russia relations plunged to their lowest ebb in years.