AP - Barack Obama swept to the Democratic presidential nomination Wednesday night, a transforming triumph that made him the first black American to lead a major party into the fall campaign for the White House. Thousands of national convention delegates stood and cheered as they made history.

AP - Gustav stalled offshore Wednesday and poured more misery onto Haiti after landslides and flooding killed 23 people. Oil workers began leaving their rigs and New Orleans drew up evacuation plans as forecasters warned the storm could plow into the U.S. Gulf coast as a major hurricane.

AP - Western leaders warned Russia on Wednesday to "change course," hoping to keep a conflict that already threatens a key nuclear pact and could even raise U.S. chicken prices from blossoming into a new Cold War.

AP - Conditions in the western Iraqi province of Anbar, where a brutal insurgency once ruled, have improved so dramatically that the United States is handing over responsibility for security in the Sunni stronghold to Iraq within days. Troops freed up in Iraq could shift to Afghanistan.

AP - The Bush administration is raising the stakes in a court fight that could change the balance of power between the White House and Congress.

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 - Talk about an extreme makeover: Scientists have transformed one type of cell into another in living mice, a big step toward the goal of growing replacement tissues to treat a variety of diseases.

AP - Marion "Suge" Knight was jailed Wednesday on assault and drug charges after he was accused of beating his girlfriend while brandishing a knife near the Las Vegas Strip, police said.

AP - Baseball's replay central is an 18-by-24 foot room on the fifth floor of a former baking factory in Manhattan's Meatpacking District that's crammed with so many computers and television screens that it looks like NASA's Mission Control.

AP - On the eve of Hurricane Katrina's third anniversary, a nervous New Orleans watched Wednesday as another storm threatened to test everything the city has rebuilt, and officials made preliminary plans to evacuate people, pets and hospitals in an attempt to avoid a Katrina-style chaos.

Reuters - To shouts of "Yes we can," Democrats nominated Barack Obama on Wednesday as their presidential candidate in a historic first for a black American, sending him into battle against Republican John McCain.

Reuters - Tropical Storm Gustav pulled away from Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Wednesday after killing 23 people and threatened to become a major hurricane aimed at New Orleans and Gulf of Mexico oil fields.

Reuters - The top U.S. Marine officer said on Wednesday he could reduce his 25,000-strong force in the former al Qaeda stronghold of Iraq's Anbar province to reinforce military operations against a growing Taliban threat in Afghanistan.

Reuters - U.S. military planners have begun pondering the thorny question of how Georgia's shattered armed forces might be rebuilt without provoking a Russian backlash that could risk direct confrontation with Moscow.

Reuters - A federal jury in Idaho sentenced Joseph Duncan on Wednesday to death for shooting to death a 9-year-old boy in front of his younger sister after kidnapping and sexually abusing the boy.

Reuters - Corporate America is having the hardest time getting its customers to pay their bills since the last U.S. recession in 2001, according to a study released on Wednesday.

Reuters - Lesbian activist Del Martin died on Wednesday, just two months after marrying her partner of 55 years in one of the first legally recognized California same-sex weddings.

AFP - Democrat Barack Obama Wednesday made history as Democrats formally nominated him by acclamation as the first black presidential nominee of a major political party.

AFP - Russia accused the West on Wednesday of ratcheting up tensions in the Black Sea with an increased NATO naval presence and warned against isolating Moscow over the conflict in Georgia.

AP - NASCAR placed Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards on probation Wednesday for the next six Sprint Cup Series races, the result of their on-track incident last weekend at the end of the race at Bristol Motor Speedway.

AP - Jason Marquis shut down Pittsburgh's batters, and the Chicago Cubs turned two well-placed bunts into two runs in the seventh inning and swept yet another three-game series from the Pirates with a 2-0 victory Wednesday.

AFP - Real Madrid target David Villa, the top scorer at Euro 2008, has ended speculation about his future by extending his contract with Valencia until 2014, the Spanish first division club said Wednesday.

AFP - World number two Jelena Jankovic struggled but held on to beat Sofia Arvidsson 6-3, 6-7 (5/7), 7-5 in the second round of the 20.6 million dollar US Open on Wednesday.