Top Stories

AP - With the NCAA lurking around Chapel Hill and some of its best players sitting in the stands, North Carolina found itself in a most improbable position.

AP - Frustrated, discouraged and just plain mad, a lot of people who have lost jobs — or know someone who has — now want to see the names of Democrats on pink slips. And that's jeopardizing the party's chances in Ohio and all across the country in November's elections.

AP - Paul Conrad used his pencil like a weapon. His long lines and jagged angles seemed to point directly at the leaders he deemed charlatans and fools in need of deflating.

AP - American Muslims are boosting security at mosques, seeking help from leaders of other faiths and airing ads underscoring their loyalty to the United States — all ahead of a 9/11 anniversary they fear could bring more trouble for their communities.

AP - In the end, Earl's worst damage in New England was to seasonal businesses hoping to end their summer on a high note.

AP - Sometimes there's no going back.

AFP - New Zealand braced for more destruction Sunday as aftershocks and an approaching storm threatened an area of the country hit by the most devastating earthquake in decades.

AP - Hip-hop star Kanye West is still feeling the pain over his ambush of Taylor Swift last year — and he's expressing his pain all over Twitter.

AFP - A suicide bombing at a military installation in Russia's volatile North Caucasus region of Dagestan killed five people Sunday and wounded 39, Ria Novosti news agency said, citing a top security source.

Reuters - President Barack Obama, previewing a big push on the U.S. economy next week, on Saturday defended policies that he said "have stopped the bleeding" and put the middle class on the road to recovery.

Reuters - Hurricane Earl made landfall in Canada on Saturday and fizzled after a series of scares along the U.S. East Coast, flooding roads, felling trees and cutting power to tens of thousands in the Atlantic province of Nova Scotia.

Reuters - Tens of thousands protested across France on Saturday against a clampdown on immigrants, launching a week of action over policies on which President Nicolas Sarkozy has staked his political reputation.

Reuters - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has approved a $690 million payment to French retailer Casino and other owners of a supermarket chain nationalized earlier this year, state media said on Saturday.

Reuters - A Mexican judge ordered Edgar "La Barbie" Valdez, believed to be one of the country's top drug bosses, held for 40 more days of investigation, the federal prosecutor's office said on Saturday.

Reuters - Pro-Taliban Pakistani militants are trying to create a sectarian rift, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Saturday, as a new wave of violence piled pressure on a government already struggling with a flood crisis.

AP - Nine people died when a light aircraft belonging to a skydiving company crashed and burst into flames Saturday near a popular tourist spot in New Zealand's Southern Alps, police said.

AP - BP PLC said the blowout preventer that failed to stop oil from spewing into the Gulf of Mexico was removed from the company's well on Friday afternoon.

Reuters - A suicide bomber struck a rally in the Pakistani city of Quetta on Friday, killing at least 54 people in the second major attack this week and piling pressure on a U.S.-backed government overwhelmed by a flood crisis.

AP - Bristol Palin said she didn't think twice before waltzing into "Dancing with the Stars," though she's barely danced in her life.

AP - Even Rafael Nadal felt compelled to applaud when his second-round opponent at the U.S. Open hit a spectacular, full-sprint winner and was left doing the splits at the net.