AP - John McCain assailed Barack Obama's character and his campaign positions on taxes, abortion and more Wednesday night, hoping to turn their final presidential debate into a launching pad for a political comeback. "You didn't tell the American people the truth," he said.

AP - The economy lurched deeper into the doldrums Wednesday and took the stock market down with it, sending the Dow Jones industrials to a staggering 733-point loss and erasing any hopes that the convulsions that have shaken Wall Street for a month were over.

AP - Democratic Rep. John Murtha said Wednesday his home base of western Pennsylvania is racist and that could reduce Barack Obama's victory margin in the state by 4 percentage points.

AP - American soldiers killed the alleged No. 2 leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, a Moroccan who trained in Afghanistan, recruited foreign fighters and ran operations in northern Iraq where Sunni insurgents remain a potent threat, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

AP - Close to one in every three newly registered Ohio voters will end up on court-ordered lists being sent to county election boards because they have some discrepancy in their records, an elections spokesman said Wednesday.

AP - A one-time top lieutenant to Martin Luther King Jr. was sentenced Wednesday to 15 years in prison for having sex more than a decade ago with his then-teenage daughter.

AP - A soft-spoken designer from Portland, Ore., has the competition sewn up on Bravo's hit reality show "Project Runway."