AP - The last ferry left for the mainland and coastal residents hunkered down at home as Hurricane Earl closed in with 105 mph winds early Friday on North Carolina's dangerously exposed Outer Banks, the first and perhaps most destructive stop on the storm's projected journey up the Eastern Seaboard.

AP - A bomb squad investigated a report of a suspicious package after police evacuated four of six concourses at Miami International Airport for several hours on the eve of the Labor Day travel period, an airport spokesman said Friday.

AP - An oil platform that burned off the Louisiana coast Thursday was the second such disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in less than five months. This time, the Coast Guard said there was no leak, and no one was killed.

AP - The unemployment rate may be about to rise again.

AP - As the last of 30,000 U.S. reinforcements arrive in Afghanistan, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday got a firsthand look at operations in the dangerous south where Afghan and international troops are ramping up security.

AP - In an early sign of promise, Israeli and Palestinian leaders pledged Thursday in a cordial first round of talks to keep meeting at regular intervals, aiming to nail down a framework for overcoming deep disputes and achieving lasting peace within a year.

AP - It will go down as one of the most painful openings to a political debate in recent memory.

AP - Soldiers killed at least 25 suspected cartel members Thursday in a raid and gunbattle in a Mexican state near the U.S. border that has become one of the most dangerous battlegrounds in the country's drug war.

AP - The former television producer who tried to blackmail David Letterman was freed Thursday after four months in jail for a plot that put a spotlight on the comic icon's office affairs, city Correction Department records show.

AP - Roger Federer is one cool customer.