AP - With Hurricane Gustav spinning toward landfall, lobbyists, corporations and industry groups are scrambling to put a solemn face on their glitzy GOP convention parties and still revel with big donors, delegates and members of Congress.

AP - Demonstrations near the Republican National Convention site turned violent Monday, as protesters harassed some delegates, smashed windows, slashed car tires and threw bottles. Police using pepper spray arrested more than 250 people.

Politico - ST. PAUL, Minn. — Faced with tough questions about Sarah Palin, John McCain's campaign and other Republicans are responding with a defensive crouch — lashing out at the media to deflect Palin from scrutiny and to rally a party base that has fallen hard for the conservative Alaska governor.

AP - Republicans have nominated Sen. John McCain for president, handing the senator the prize that eluded him eight years ago.

AP - Not merely a Republican. Not merely a candidate. John McCain cast himself as a leader for all Americans, regardless of party or status.

AFP - US scientists have unveiled the most complete genetic profile ever attempted of glioblastoma, a common and deadly form of the brain cancer that US Senator Edward Kennedy is battling.

AP - European Union nations called for an international probe Friday to find out which country should shoulder responsibility for starting the conflict between Georgia and Russia.

CQPolitics.com - The back-to-back Democratic and Republican convention extragavanzas gave both parties a chance to put their best foot forward as the general election campaign gets under way. If their competing efforts are a wash -- and the earliest post-convention polling suggests that -- the advantage remains with the Democrats as far as their push to expand their congressional majorities.

AP - Barack Obama poked some fun at his Arabic-derived first name to explain the need for the constitutional right of prisoners to appeal their detention.

Reuters - Al Franken, a comedian and former liberal radio talk show host, won the Democratic nomination on Tuesday to run for a U.S. Senate seat from Minnesota.

AFP - Barack Obama strived to wrench the ill-tempered White House campaign back to voters' anxieties as he castigated the 'lies and phony outrage' of his Republican foes over a farmyard taunt.

AP - Democratic leaders on Thursday selected the mayor of a suburban Cleveland town to replace the late Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones on the Nov. 4 ballot.

AP - Ben Harrell waited for Gov. Sarah Palin to stop by at his Mocha Moose coffee house like she does most days she's back home. But things are different now when she's in town.

Reuters - Any attempt to arrest war crimes fugitive Ratko Mladic, vital for improving ties with the European Union, will be an extremely dangerous operation, Serbia's war crimes prosecutor said on Friday.

AP - On the outside, it looks like just another metal and glass high-rise. Inside, just steps off Michigan Avenue's busy shopping thoroughfare, beats the heart of Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

AP - John McCain's health plan won't lower the ranks of the uninsured. Barack Obama's fails to curb the soaring cost of health care, meaning initial gains in helping more people buy health insurance would eventually be undermined.

Politico - The Federal Reserve extended $85 billion in new credit to the ailing insurance giant AIG Tuesday night, even as Big Three auto executives were to meet Wednesday with Speaker Nancy Pelosi seeking up to $25 billion in loan guarantees to help them retool to produce more energy efficient vehicles.

AP - The U.S. has sent an ambassador to Armenia, more than two years after the previous one had his tour of duty cut short.

AP - John McCain either doesn't want to meet Spain's prime minister any time soon or isn't quite sure who he is.

AP - Being a freeman of the City of London used to mean strolling around with your sword unsheathed, getting as drunk as you liked and driving your sheep across London Bridge for free.

AP - Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain together spent $94 million in August, a record spree mostly aimed at about a dozen states that will probably decide their historic presidential contest.

AP - Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens, in the midst of a tough re-election fight back at home, begins another fight with legal and political implications as his trial on corruption charges begins only steps from the U.S. Capitol.

Politico - “Contrary to popular belief,” historian Daniel J. Boorstin once wrote, “Barnum’s great discovery was not how easy it was to deceive the public, but rather how much the public enjoyed being deceived. Especially if they could see how it was being done. They were flattered that anyone would use such ingenuity to entertain them.”

AP - The Federal Reserve, in coordinated action with foreign central banks, plowed $30 billion into money markets overseas Wednesday, part of an ongoing effort to fight a global credit crisis.

Reuters - A $531.4 billion U.S. defense spending bill passed on Wednesday by the House of Representatives delays implementation of $460 million cost cap for small new Navy combat ships until fiscal year 2010.

Politico - When John McCain announced Wednesday that he was suspending his campaign to tend to the nation’s economic crisis, a top aide said McCain wanted the presidential candidates and members of Congress to “lock themselves in a room for the next 100 hours” to achieve “consensus on something.”

AP - Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain stretched the facts in accusing each other of kowtowing to the oil industry and sprinkled other dubious assertions across the landscape of public policy in their first presidential debate.

Reuters - A U.N. group on Myanmar vowed on Saturday to keep the world spotlight on the troubled country and to press the military rulers of the former Burma to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions.

AFP - The United Nations said on Sunday it would send food to those displaced by fighting in Sri Lanka's rebel-held north, two weeks after aid workers were ordered out of the region.

AP - Republican John McCain has maneuvered himself into a political dead end and has five weeks to find his way out.