A Nebraska district court judge has dismissed state Sen. Ernie Chambers' lawsuit against God, finding that "there can never be service effectuated on the named defendant." Chambers sued God in 2007, seeking an injunction against acts of violence such as earthquakes and tornados. He's considering an appeal.
Tonight's presidential debate at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., is slated to focus entirely on the economy and domestic policy. Barack Obama and John McCain will be seated at a table with moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS. The event begins at 9 p.m. Eastern and airs on C-Span, MSNBC, CNN and other channels.
A 77-year-old man died Monday night in a cemetery in western Quebec after a tombstone fell on top of him. Officers said the man had gone to St. Gregoire Cemetery to visit the site where his parents were buried and was digging next to a tombstone when it fell.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain altered the lyrics of the Beach Boys classic "Barbara Ann" last year to refer to an attack on Iran. "We don't have any objection to them singing a song," said Iran's parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani.
Vice President Dick Cheney, 67, experienced atrial fibrillation on Wednesday morning and will see doctors to "restore his normal rhythm," the second time in less than a year that he will have the procedure.
An Interior Department auditor said he was told not to audit Shell Oil's increase in "oil transportation" costs from $.75 to $3.00 per barrel, even though it greatly raised U.S. payments to the oil company. "Laws and regulations were not applied," said Bob Maxwell, whose job was eliminated shortly after he began pressing the issue.
Salon has obtained video suggesting that friendly fire from an American tank killed two U.S. soldiers in Ramadi, Iraq, in late 2006, and that the Army ignored the video and other persuasive data in order to rule that the deaths were due to enemy action. "A tank shot us," one soldier told Salon. "That is what happened."
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The Bush administration issued a pair of secret memos to the CIA in 2003 and 2004 that explicitly endorsed the agency's use of interrogation techniques such as waterboarding against al-Qaeda suspects -- documents prompted by worries among intelligence officials about a possible backlash if details of the program became public. Read More
The McCain campaign's depiction of Barack Obama as a mysterious "other" has found a receptive audience with many white Southern voters. "He's neither-nor," said Ricky Thompson, a pipe fitter who works at a factory north of Mobile, while standing in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart store just north of here. "He's other. It's in the Bible. Come as one. Don't create other breeds."
Canadian voters gave Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservatives a tighter hold on minority government as the country braces for a looming economic downturn.
Debt collection of American consumers is one of the fastest-growing sectors in Indian outsourcing. "It's like people are totally drowning," said collector Omkar Gadgil, 24, who goes by the alias Richard Rudy. "There has just been years of overspending and now the crash."
John McCain's brother sent an e-mail to campaign and Republican officials late Monday blasting the campaign's strategy. "Let John McCain be John McCain," wrote Joe McCain. "Make ads that show John not as crank and curmudgeon but as a great leader for his time."
John McCain today proposed $52 billion in tax breaks aimed at reducing the impact of stock market losses on the nation's seniors, providing relief to the unemployed and encouraging savings. "I will help to create jobs for Americans in the most effective way a president can do this -- with tax cuts that are directed specifically to create jobs and protect your life savings," he said.
A growing al Qaida-backed insurgency, combined with the Pakistani army's reluctance to launch an all-out crackdown, political infighting and energy and food shortages are plunging America's key ally in the war on terror deeper into turmoil and violence, says a soon-to-be completed U.S. intelligence assessment.
Shooting of Luc Besson's film From Paris With Love, starring John Travolta, has been cancelled after 10 stunt cars were set alight during a night-time rampage. Several scenes were to be shot in Les Bosquets de Montfermeil, a restive public housing estate in northeast Paris that was hit hard by riots in 2005.

