AP - Barack Obama will stand before delegates and the nation Thursday — the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s historic "I Have a Dream" speech — to accept the Democratic presidential nomination, the first black man to claim such a prize.

AP - National Guard troops stand ready, batteries and water bottles sold briskly, and one small-town mayor spent a sleepless night worrying. The New Orleans area watched as a storm marched across the Caribbean on the eve of Hurricane Katrina's third anniversary.

AP - Georgia's foreign minister says the ethnic cleansing of Georgians from the separatist province of South Ossetia has nearly been completed.