AP - National Guard troops stand ready, batteries and water bottles are selling briskly, and one small-town mayor has spent a sleepless night worrying. The New Orleans area is skittishly watching as a storm marches across the Caribbean on the eve of Hurricane Katrina's third anniversary.

AP - A longtime sex offender was sentenced to death Wednesday for the 2005 kidnapping, torture and murder of a 9-year-old northern Idaho boy after federal jurors who watched video of some of the brutality deliberated just three hours.

AP - The Colorado man who authorities say made racist threats against Barack Obama is scheduled to be formally charged on state drug and weapons offenses.

AP - A majority of California voters oppose a ballot initiative to ban gay marriage, though they are evenly split on the practice itself, according to a poll released Wednesday.

AP - Union bosses in this region of rural Mississippi have long grumbled that the largest factories here hire illegal immigrants, and that the immigrants were starting to get more overtime and supervisory positions.

AP - Four jail inmates who authorities say helped eight others make a brazen escape were charged Wednesday, as officials kept up the search for the five prisoners who remain on the loose, including a convicted murderer.

AP - A federal jury on Wednesday began deliberating whether a former Marine squad leader committed manslaughter in Iraq, marking the first time in which civilians will decide whether the actions of a military service member during combat were criminal.

AP - Linda Sohus was a towering blonde fantasy buff who liked to paint unicorns. Her husband, Jonathan, was a diminutive computer programmer working at a NASA lab who shared his wife's passion for science fiction.

AP - When a computer system that distributes flight plans nationwide came rolling to a halt this week because of a software glitch, so did airplanes on tarmacs from Orlando to Chicago. The ensuing delays drove home just how easily an apparently isolated problem can trigger network-wide disarray in the country's aging air traffic control system.

AP - Law enforcement officers wanted: must work graveyard shifts alone in remote towns along the Mexican border, put in long hours and perform well in triple-digit temperatures.

AP - Barack Obama aims to weave the personal with the political Thursday as he explains to 75,000 supporters in a massive stadium — and millions more at home — how as president he would make a difference in their lives.

AP - More ominous signs Wednesday have scientists saying that a global warming "tipping point" in the Arctic seems to be happening before their eyes: Sea ice in the Arctic Ocean is at its second lowest level in about 30 years.

AP - Austin Swarner left high school to care for his mother while she fought a losing battle with cancer. Tony Brown wanted to begin supporting himself and left two classes shy of a diploma. Haelee Holden got tired of trying to make it through school while flipping burgers until 1 a.m.

AP - Six mausoleums for the unclaimed dead of Hurricane Katrina stand on what was vacant land just five weeks ago, as New Orleans — in what could be a testament to its determination — scrambles to complete a memorial by Friday's third anniversary of the storm.