Top National News Stories And Photos

AP - Barack Obama says he's decided on a running mate, but he won't say who. "I've made the selection, that's all you're gonna get," Obama said told reporters while campaigning in Virginia Thursday. Obama didn't say whether he's informed his pick yet.

AP - Iraq and the U.S. have reached preliminary agreement to withdraw American forces from Iraqi cities by next June, six years into the increasingly unpopular war, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Thursday after meeting with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

AP - John McCain may have created his own housing crisis. Hours after a report that the Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting didn't know how many homes he and his multimillionaire wife own, Democratic rival Barack Obama launched a national TV ad and a series of campaign stops aimed at portraying McCain as wealthy and out of touch.

AP - As if a fourth straight day of rain from Tropical Storm Fay wasn't enough, weary residents are now dealing with quintessentially Floridian fallout: alligators, snakes and other critters driven from their swampy lairs into flooded streets, backyards and doorsteps.

AP - Losing for the first time since 2000, the U.S. softball team was denied a chance for a fourth straight gold medal Thursday, beaten 3-1 by Japan in the sport's last appearance in the Olympics for at least eight years — and maybe for good.

AP - A student fatally shot a 15-year-old classmate during a dispute Thursday at a Knoxville high school, police said, as other teenagers watched in horror as the victim clutched his chest and fell to the floor.

AP - The brightly lit room looks like any nondescript warehouse packed with boxes and dusty shelves, but inside this plain brick building is nearly $200 million worth of treasures from the world's most famous shipwreck. The 5,500-piece collection contains almost everything recovered from the wreckage of the RMS Titanic, which has sat 2.5 miles below the surface of the Atlantic ocean since the boat sank on April 15, 1912.

AP - Bay County Sheriff's deputies were forced to use a Taser to subdue an escaped emu named Plop-Plop. The large female bird escaped from a farm last weekend and on Monday, she holed up with some horses and goats in a pen.

AP - Gene Upshaw, a towering lineman on the football field who went on to win untold millions of dollars for NFL players as their union leader, has died at age 63. Upshaw had a Hall of Fame career as a guard for the Oakland Raiders — a team that won two of the three Super Bowls it reached during his 15 years in a black and silver jersey.

Reuters - It's show time for Barack Obama and John McCain, with back-to-back presidential nominating conventions offering them tightly-scripted spectacles designed to polish their images and highlight their messages.

Reuters - Russia said on Thursday it would pull back some of its troops in Georgia within 24 hours after Washington demanded they leave "now," but Moscow said it would still keep a force stationed in Georgia's heartland.

Reuters - A federal appeals court on Thursday declined to rule on whether lawsuits seeking to target President George W. Bush's warrantless wiretapping are covered by secrecy laws or can be challenged in court.

Reuters - Investors' growing belief in the likelihood of a federal bailout of home-funding giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac triggered a rally in the debt prices of the two companies on Thursday while a steep fall in their shares prices abated.

Reuters - The United States and Iraq are close to a deal extending the presence of U.S. troops beyond 2008, but any timetable for their withdrawal must be "feasible," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday.