NEW YORK

U.S. retailers are expected to report higher monthly sales in August, even though consumer confidence sagged and Hurricane Irene disrupted shopping along the East Coast during a key back-to-school weekend.

The effort to hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden will be featured in a two-hour television program, including interviews with President Barack Obama and senior counter-terrorism officials, the History channel said on Wednesday.

Hurricane Irene may heap billions of dollars of extra costs on the already fragile U.S. economy, but insurance companies are likely to emerge relatively unscathed.

Here's some good news about the upcoming fall TV season: There will be marked increase in the number of actresses populating new series!

Tennis star, Venus Williams, withdrew from the last grand slam of the year on Wednesday, revealing she is suffering from an autoimmune disease.

Hurricane Irene devastated East Coast and New York, and now a wildfire caused by drought is affecting North Texas and Oklahoma City.

Unseeded teen-ager Christina McHale struck a blow for emerging young U.S. women's players by beating France's eighth-seeded Marion Bartoli 7-6 6-2 to reach the third round of the U.S. Open Wednesday.

Oscar-nominated Actor Robert Downey, Jr., star of the Iron Man movies, and his wife Susan are expecting their first child together, his spokesman told Reuters on Wednesday.

Oscar-nominated actor Robert Downey Jr. and his wife Susan Levin are expecting their first child together.

U.S. President Barack Obama has declared that there is a major disaster in New Jersey and plans to visit the state on Sunday. According to information from the White House, Obama has signed a New Jersey disaster declaration and has ordered that federal aid supplement the state and local recovery efforts in the area affected by Hurricane Irene.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp said Robert Kelly, who has held the company's top job since 2008, has stepped down as chairman and chief executive officer, following differences in approach to managing the company.

A team from the United States and France has found newly discovered hand axes from about 1.76 million year ago. The team made the discovery after traveling to an archaeological site located along the northwest shoreline of Kenya's Lake Turkana.

Talks resumed Wednesday between Verizon Communications and the unions representing 45,000 landline workers. Unease is said to be growing among many workers, however, who don't think they should have gone back to work.

Erica Abbot, a professional modern dancer in New York, was killed after a car ran her over while riding her bike in Brooklyn on Tuesday.

Floodwaters finally started to recede from areas of the northeast devastated by Hurricane Irene but many communities were still underwater on Wednesday and relief workers battled cut-off roads and raging rivers to deliver emergency supplies.

Gold and silver prices closed modestly higher on the futures markets Wednesday as strong demand from foreign buyers offset expectations that the Federal Reserve will signal fresh, potentially inflationary, intervention in the market next month.

It's too early for forecasters at the National Hurricane Center to tell if Tropical Storm Katia will eventually strike the U.S. but that possibility certainly exists, they say. Katia holds the potential for making a path similar to Irene's track. Currently, Tropical Storm Katia poses no threat to land. The storm, expected to reach hurricane strength today before perhaps escalating into a major storm category, is located in the middle of the Atlantic, about 1,600 miles east of the island of...

There was no damage to the car or the Bieber

As people living in Hurricane Irene's path begin a multi-billion dollar rebuilding effort, many will have to contend with the fact that homeowners insurance does not cover the flood damage that was a chief source of destruction.

15 Muslims were arrested in Rye, New York after Playland Park officials refused to allow women to wear traditional religious headscarf on certain rides.

Democratic State Representative Andre Carson of Indiana made the comments during an appearance in Miami on August 22