NEW YORK (Reuters) - General Motors Corp is in talks with Indian automaker Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd and automakers in Russia and China about selling its Hummer brand, sources familiar with the matter said.

AP - In the small-town dinner-theater mystery, Bruce Hummel had no trouble admitting he was the killer: 'I got my revenge,' he told the audience. 'Tell that to the sheriff.' Now he faces a murder charge in real life.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Verizon Communications Inc and two big unions kept talking after a labor contract covering 65,000 workers expired on Saturday and the unions said they made progress toward a deal, averting a strike threat.

ZURICH (Reuters) - U.S. regulators have approved two single-pill high blood pressure drugs, Diovan HCT and Exforge, from Switzerland's Novartis AG, the drugmaker said on Monday.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Kids' meals at popular fast-food restaurants deliver more than a quick lunch or dinner -- 90 percent of them have far more than a meal's worth of calories and many are loaded with fat and salt too, according to a report released on Monday.

AP - Two tiger attacks this week at two different Missouri animal facilities that had both been cited for past problems have law enforcement officials calling for tougher exotic animal laws.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Green Bay have agreed to trade veteran quarterback Brett Favre to the New York Jets, the Packers confirmed on their website on Wednesday.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Sudanese refugee Lopez Lomong, the U.S. flag-bearer at the Olympics opening ceremony on Friday, is not the only foreign-born athlete in the American team.

AP - Soaring gas prices have claimed plenty of victims — from SUV sales to stock market portfolios. They now threaten to claim another: the expansion of one of the world's busiest airports.

AP - Police in Maryland say one person has died after a tractor-trailer plunged into the water off the eastbound span of the Bay Bridge.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Defending men's champions Ricardo Santos and Emanuel Rego pinned another win on the board at the Olympic beach volleyball on Monday, beating two fellow Brazilians who now play for Georgia. Renato 'Geor' Gomes and Jorge 'Gia' Terceiro, who took citizenship in the former Soviet state to qualify for the Olympics, gave their compatriots a run for their money but eventually lost 21-19, 21-17.

AP - The family of a central Louisiana man who died after a police officer repeatedly jolted him with a Taser filed a wrongful-death lawsuit Monday, on the eve of a grand jury's probe of the case.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Getting old does not mean saying so long to sex, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

AP - A former sheriff was ordered Wednesday to stand trial on felony charges that accuse him of demanding sex from female inmates in exchange for his help in getting them into a drug court rehabilitation program.

AP - A couple watched helplessly as their 4-year-old son was trapped alone on a runaway boat as it spun in circles on Lake Michigan for nearly 45 minutes.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Michael Phelps grew up face down in a swimming pool.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Michael Phelps swam his way into sporting immortality on Sunday by winning his eighth gold medal at the Beijing Olympics.

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Former 'Nightline' executive producer Leroy Sievers, who connected with a wide audience through his National Public Radio commentary and blog on his struggle with cancer, died Saturday at his home in Maryland. He was 53.

AP - Federal inspectors at U.S. border crossings repeatedly turned back filthy, disease-ridden shipments of peppers from Mexico in the months before a salmonella outbreak that sickened 1,400 people was finally traced to Mexican chilies.

DALLAS (Reuters) - More than 200,000 children were hit as punishment in U.S. schools last year and in the South more blacks than whites are struck, two human rights groups said in a report released on Wednesday.

AP - Two-year community colleges are seeing record enrollment as families squeezed by tough economic times steer high school graduates away from more expensive four-year universities.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Along with TV cameras and funny hats, the 45,000 Democratic and Republican convention-goers will bring something more important to Denver and Minneapolis-St. Paul: their credit cards.

BEIJING (Reuters) - Online traders are racing to cash in on the Beijing Olympics by selling items related to gold medal winners, ranging from a $1 million price tag on the domain name 'Phelpsean' to $4,000 for five pairs of basketballers' shoes.

AP - Order is restored in international basketball. The United States is back on top, but not by that much anymore.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Tax and accounting loopholes that largely benefit rich taxpayers and companies cost the U.S. government $20 billion a year even as the pay gap between chief executives and employees has widened, two groups said on Monday.

(Reuters) - A group of oil companies were awarded more than $1 billion by a U.S. court of appeals to recover their costs related to offshore leases in California.

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.

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.

HARARE (Reuters) - South Africa said Zimbabwean power-sharing talks would resume on Friday despite comment from President Robert Mugabe's ZANU-PF party that there was no need for further negotiations.

AP - As city officials detailed plans for an evacuation that could be called over the weekend, some residents weren't waiting to be told to leave.

AP - Royal Dutch Shell, BP and other oil companies wrapped up evacuations and shut down production Saturday as an intensifying Hurricane Gustav churned toward the petroleum-rich waters of the Gulf of Mexico.