MOSCOW -- Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin suggested in a CNN interview Thursday that the United States pushed Georgia toward war and said he suspects a connection to the American presidential campaign, the network said.

DENVER -- John McCain said Thursday he had yet to decide on a running mate.

DENVER -- Barack Obama stepped triumphantly into history Wednesday night, the first black American to win a major party presidential nomination, as thousands of Democrats transformed their convention hall into a joyful, shouting celebration.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- A federal jury on Wednesday began deliberating the fate of a former Marine sergeant accused in the killing of four Iraqi prisoners, a case that both sides argued in closing arguments could affect the United States' mission in Iraq.

SEDONA, Ariz. -- With Sen. John McCain likely to announce his vice presidential choice Friday at a noon rally in Dayton, Ohio, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll indicates that 20 percent of the Republican's supporters would be less likely to vote for him if he selects a running mate who supports abortion rights.

DENVER -- Another former Republican presidential candidate has descended on this city to cast Barack Obama as unready for the White House.

TBILISI, Georgia -- 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.

NEW ORLEANS -- 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.

LOS ANGELES -- With a band of traditional Korean drummers, a Latin dance group and a martial arts exhibition, city officials broke ground Wednesday on a small urban pocket park at the site where Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated 40 years ago.

NAJAF, Iraq -- The city's first airport is weeks away from opening, but already a bigger one is talked about. Land prices are soaring. Merchants say they don't remember business ever being so good.

BOISE, Idaho -- A longtime sex offender was sentenced to death Wednesday for the 2005 kidnapping, torture and murder of a 9-year-old northern Idaho boy after federal jurors who watched video of some of the brutality deliberated just three hours.

WASHINGTON -- 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.