National

Tom Gjelten's new book, Bacardi and the Long Fight For Cuba, threads the history of the family-owned Bacardi Rum Co. together with that of the nation in which it was founded.

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The U.S. unemployment rate leaped to 6.1 percent in August, the highest in nearly five years. The Labor Department released the numbers Friday, and they're worse than what many economists expected.

The economy lost another 84,000 jobs in August, and more than 9 million Americans are out of work.

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Fears about the global economy have flared up again, with worries starting in the United States and then infecting Asian markets.

Nearly every stock index in Asia lost 2 percent to 3 percent of its value Friday, and European shares also started the trading day lower.

The latest flight from financial markets was sparked by gloomy reports on U.S. retail sales and the U.S. labor market.

Jack Abramoff, the lobbyist at the center of a Washington, D.C., corruption scandal, was sentenced Thursday to four years in prison.

According to the Washington Post, he told the judge he is no longer the person who "happily and arrogantly" engaged in a lifestyle of corruption.

In fact, he's now a writer.

Republican presidential hopeful John McCain, speaking Thursday at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn., vowed that change is coming.

Analysts Mark Mellman and David Frum talk about how McCain did, and how the convention as a whole.

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One word in politics that has gotten a lot of use recently is "maverick." It's often used to describe Republican presidential candidate John McCain.

But where does the term come from?

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Think the feminists who protested the 1968 Miss America pageant in the name of women's liberation burned their bras?

Think again. No bras were set aflame that September day. But the idea that they were helped launch the movement onto the national stage.

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John McCain accepted the GOP's presidential nomination in a nearly hour-long speech Thursday night at the Republican National Convention in St.

Paul, Minn. McCain complimented rival Barack Obama for winning the Democratic nomination, but offered a long list of criticisms of the Illinois senator.

McCain said he would keep taxes low, while Obama would raise them. McCain also said Obama would increase, not cut, government spending.

In Pakistan, lawmakers will select the country's next president Saturday. Asif Ali Zardari is the frontrunner to succeed President Pervez Musharraf, who resigned under pressure last month.

Zardari took over the Pakistan Peoples Party after his wife and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December.

When a politician takes the convention stage, he or she is speaking to two very different audiences: the undecided viewers at home and the delegates in the arena.

Thursday night, John McCain officially accepted the GOP's presidential nomination. On the convention floor, his acceptance speech was well received.

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