AP - Hurricane Dolly slammed into the South Texas coast Wednesday with punishing rain and winds of 100 mph, blowing down signs, damaging an apartment complex and knocking out power to thousands before weakening over land.

AP - Republican John McCain on Wednesday credited the recent $10-a-barrel drop in the price of oil to President Bush's lifting of a presidential ban on offshore drilling, an action he has been advocating in his presidential campaign. The cost of oil and gasoline is "on everybody's mind in this room," McCain told a town-hall meeting.

AP - Congress is moving quickly to pass a housing package that aims to help 400,000 strapped homeowners avoid foreclosures and prevent Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from collapsing.

AP - It will be left to the next administration to decide on any sizable troop increase for Afghanistan, the Pentagon spokesman said Wednesday.

AP - From the solemnity of a Holocaust museum to a dusty village battered by Hamas rockets, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama on Wednesday professed "an unshakable commitment to the security" of Israel, whether the threat comes from terrorists, Iran or elsewhere.

AP - Texas authorities on Wednesday began looking for five indicted members of a polygamist sect, in a child sex-abuse case that the group's spokesman alleged was a face-saving move by officials who lost a court battle over their seizure of hundreds of children from a sect-owned ranch.

AP - The sabal palm, Florida's state tree, is under attack by a microscopic killer that has scientists stumped. An unknown but growing number of sabal palms in the Tampa Bay area have died from a mysterious disease that researchers are struggling to identify. Even after scientists pinpoint the disease — and that could take years — they will have to learn what insect spreads it. The disease will be tough to stop.

AP - Rapper DMX has been indicted on felony charges by a grand jury in Arizona for allegedly trying to get out of paying a hospital bill.