Headline News and Photos

AP - After one spectacular failure, the $700 billion financial industry bailout found a second life Wednesday, winning lopsided passage in the Senate and gaining ground in the House, where Republicans opposition softened.

AP - Barack Obama has surged to a seven-point lead over John McCain one month before the presidential election, lifted by voters who think the Democrat is better suited to lead the nation through its sudden financial crisis, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll that underscores the mounting concerns of some McCain backers.

AP - A commuter train engineer sent a cell phone text message 22 seconds before his commuter train crashed head-on into freight train in Southern California last month, killing 25 people, federal investigators said Wednesday.

AP - Sarah Palin and her husband have pieced together a uniquely Alaskan income that reached comfortably into six figures even before she became governor, capitalizing on valuable fishing rights, a series of land deals and a patchwork of other ventures to build an above-average lifestyle.

AP - PBS journalist Gwen Ifill, moderator of the upcoming vice presidential debate, dismissed conservative questions about her impartiality because she is writing a book that includes material on Barack Obama.

AP - A former math teacher sentenced to federal prison for a sex crime with a minor says the age of the 13-year-old schoolboy she fled with to Mexico didn't matter to her.

AP - Both sides rested in the O.J. Simpson kidnapping and armed robbery case Wednesday after a last-minute dispute over testimony blurted out by a witness threatened to derail the trial.

AP - A hiker in a rugged part of eastern California found a pilot's license and other items that appear to belong to Steve Fossett, the adventurer who vanished on a solo flight in a borrowed plane more than a year ago, authorities said Wednesday.

AP - A women's shelter on Wednesday cut headliner Sandra Bernhard from its annual benefit after she said Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin would be gang-raped if she ever visited New York.

AP - Manny Ramirez and Joe Torre brought their winning postseason ways to the Los Angeles Dodgers — and Wrigley Field. James Loney hit a go-ahead grand slam off a wild Ryan Dempster, Ramirez and Russell Martin homered and the new-look Dodgers beat the Chicago Cubs 7-2 in their NL playoff opener Wednesday night.

Reuters - The Senate approved a $700 billion bailout of the financial industry late on Wednesday that political and financial leaders called crucial to averting economic catastrophe.