NATIONAL STORIES

WHITE HOUSE (NBC) -- President Bush and his top military adviser Wednesday said they want a diplomatic end to the dispute over Iran's nuclear program.

ILLINOIS (NBC) -- An ex-convict captured after an exhaustive, two-state manhunt has been charged in two killings.

CALIFORNIA (NBC) -- Firefighters in the west are battling more than a thousand wildfires sparked in recent weeks by lightning.

FLORIDA (NBC) -- Many horse owners are not looking forward to this holiday weekend because of the fireworks that come with it.

LACKLAND AIR FORCE BASE, Texas (AP) -- The American ambassador to Colombia says U.S. and Colombian forces cooperated closely on a daring hostage rescue mission.

(NBC) -- June's job numbers are out and it's pretty much what economists had predicted.

CLEVELAND (AP) -- Police are looking for a group of teenagers who beat a homeless man to death in Cleveland.

KENNEWICK, Wash. (AP) -- Police said a pregnant woman was killed after being stabbed multiple times in the chest and her nearly full-term baby was cut from her womb. A 23-year-old woman has been arrested.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon says it is charging a Saudi Arabian with "organizing and directing" the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole and is asking for the death penalty.

Colombian spies tricked leftist rebels into handing over kidnapped presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. military contractors.

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) -- A pregnant soldier lay dead in the bathtub.

WHITE HOUSE (AP) -- The president travels just outside of Washington today to do a little digging. Bush will be in Bethesda, Maryland, for a groundbreaking ceremony where a new, state-of-the-art medical center will be built to treat wounded veterans.

CHICAGO (AP) -- An autopsy had determined an elderly resident of a Chicago nursing home was beaten to death.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- A South Korean news report says North Korea has destroyed the nuclear reactor tower at its main atomic facility.

PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) -- Pascagoula police are warning south Mississippi banks and credit unions to be on the lookout for a check cashing scam.

SEATTLE (AP) -- A woman was stabbed and another woman beaten when a traffic dispute set off an early morning brawl involving about 40 people in a downtown Seattle parking lot.

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) -- Federal agents have raided an armory owned by security contractor Blackwater Worldwide.

CINCINNATI (AP) -- John McCain and Barack Obama are sharing a reaction to the easing of relations with North Korea.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) -- The price of oil is back up above $142 a barrel today in Asia. And analysts see no quick end to the spikes because of tight supply and tension in the Middle East.

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) -- It isn't a popular decision with a segment of computer users. But today, Microsoft is to stop selling its Windows XP operating system to retailers and major computer makers.

(NBC) -- Overseas, a rocky start for markets this morning as Americans wonder what next for the limping U.S. economy.

LOS ANGELES, Calif. (AP) -- George Carlin, the dean of counterculture comedians whose biting insights on life and language were immortalized in his "Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV" routine, died of heart failure Sunday. He was 71.

HENDERSON, Ky. (AP) -- It was swift and chaotic, witnesses said, as the plastics plant worker with a determined look opened fire, killing five co-workers then himself in rural western Kentucky.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (NBC) -- The Supreme Court has issued an historic ruling on the right to bear arms.

WHITE HOUSE (NBC) -- President Bush has responded to a big step forward in the long nuclear stalemate with North Korea.

UNITY, N.H. (NBC) -- Rivals turned allies, Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton are making a show of unity in a hamlet named for it.

(NBC) -- In a speech intended to define his own sense of patriotism Barack Obama was forced to defend rival John McCain.

TENNESSEE (AP) -- Tennessee police are investigating a brutal dragging death.

(NBC) -- The first of July looked a lot like the rough month of June on Wall Street.

(NBC) -- Barack Obama was reaching out to Christian groups and John McCain was speaking to law-and-order conservatives.