AP - Forecasters say Hurricane Earl is weakening as it passes over North Carolina's Outer Banks but is still packing powerful winds as it heads up the Eastern Seaboard.
AP - An oil platform exploded and burned off the Louisiana coast Thursday, the second such disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in less than five months. This time, the Coast Guard said there was no leak, and no one was killed.
AP - A two-story Comfort Inn has become a makeshift hurricane hostel on North Carolina's Outer Banks for those who want to stay close to their homes but know they need better shelter from the outslaught of Earl.
AP - Investigators have identified the owner of a trunk in which the mummified remains of two babies were found, bringing them a step closer to solving the intriguing international mystery.
AP - Don Fosburg recalled friends and family killed in World War II as he marked the 65th anniversary of the end of the conflict on Thursday.
FBI: 6 accused in forced labor of 400 Thai workers (AP)
AP - Six recruiters were accused Thursday of luring 400 laborers from Thailand to the United States and forcing them to work, according to a federal indictment that the FBI called the largest human-trafficking case ever charged in U.S. history.
AP - A man who worked at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport was arrested Thursday on suspicion that he stole hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of items from the luggage of passengers in a case that could include hundreds of victims from around the world.
Embattled Illinois prisons chief resigns (AP)
AP - Illinois' prison chief, who became a political liability to Gov. Pat Quinn during an election year because of a secret prisoner release program he oversaw, is stepping down, the governor said Thursday.
AP - Bethany Storro had just bought a pair of sunglasses and was celebrating a new job when a woman walked up to her with a cup and said: "Hey pretty girl, do you want to drink this?"
AP - Police had been negotiating with James Jae Lee for several hours and intended to keep him talking for as long as it took to safely resolve the standoff at the Discovery Channel's headquarters. Inside the lobby, Lee's three hostages had no intention of waiting.
AP - The Justice Department sued the nation's self-proclaimed "toughest sheriff" on Thursday, calling Joe Arpaio's defiance of an investigation into his office's alleged discrimination against Hispanics "unprecedented."
AP - To relaunch Middle East peace talks on Thursday, the Israeli and Palestinian leaders and their American mediators quietly agreed to push aside the question of Hamas — the Islamic militant group that controls one of the two Palestinian territories and rejects negotiations.
AP - The developers planning to build a $100 million Islamic center near the World Trade Center site still have financial hurdles to clear: They haven't finished buying all the property they want for the project and are nearly a quarter-million dollars behind on real estate taxes and late fees.
AP - Calling the Chicago police chief's ultimatum to stop resorting to violence a waste of time, current and former members of some of the city's most notorious street gangs held an unlikely news conference on Thursday to send their own message to police: You're not playing fair.
AP - The former television producer who tried to blackmail David Letterman was freed Thursday after four months in jail for a plot that put a spotlight on the comic icon's office affairs, city Correction Department records show.
AP - A Detroit-area woman who was removed from a jury for commenting about the ongoing case on Facebook has a longer writing task ahead: a five-page essay about the constitutional right to a fair trial.
AP - Engineers removed a temporary cap Thursday that stopped oil from gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from BP's blown-out well in mid-July. No more oil was expected to leak into the sea, but crews were standing by with collection vessels just in case.
