By ROBERT TANNER / AP National Writer Ten thousand dead or more. New Orleans underwater for months. A “closed” sign across the city’s bridges, barring all except emergency workers for who knows how long. The dire predictions of death and devastation that came after Hurricane Katrina have, thankfully, proven to be not quite so dire.…

By JAKE COYLE / AP Entertainment Writer NEW YORK (AP) — As the CMJ Music Marathon — the Sundance of rock ‘n’ roll — descends on New York this weekend, hundreds of unknown indie bands are getting their shot at fame. Lately, their odds are a little better. With the success of groups like Death…

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) — All companies set goals, but newly formed 4Frontiers Corp. is eyeing some pretty expansive horizons. The company’s mission: to open a small human settlement on Mars within 20 years or so. Sure, it may sound far-fetched. And the company’s initial plans are a lot more terrestrial than ethereal, like developing a…

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Emmy Awards host Ellen DeGeneres and executive producer Ken Ehrlich might be the perfect team for Sunday’s ceremony: They’re both Emmy veterans who have paid serious dues. DeGeneres hosted the post-9/11 awards, which she wrote and rewrote to reflect America’s somber mood. Ehrlich produced the 1980 Emmys, when an actors’ strike…

By TOM RAUM / Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON — Hurricane Katrina swamped President Bush’s second-term domestic agenda, reordering his priorities and changing the political landscape. His open-ended commitment to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast has become his No. 1 domestic imperative. Swept away was Bush’s pledge to cut the budget deficit in half.…

NEW YORK (AP) — The video and photos of inundated businesses in New Orleans look painfully familiar to Thom Sehnert. Twelve years ago, his St. Louis-area restaurant and specialty food store were flooded by 13 feet of water that had breached a nearby levee following an extraordinary amount of spring rain. “We were totally out…

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A new Google Inc. specialty search engine sifts through the Internet’s millions of frequently updated personal journals, a long-anticipated development expected to help propel “blogging” into the cultural mainstream. The new tool, unveiled Wednesday at http://blogsearch.google.com, focuses exclusively on the material contained in the journals known as Web logs, or “blogs.”…

(AP) — International Business Machines Corp., worried the United States is losing its competitive edge, will financially back employees who want to leave the company to become math and science teachers. The new program, being announced Friday with city and state education officials, reflects tech industry fears that U.S. students are falling behind peers from…

By Dave Ramsey Dear Dave,My husband has not worked in three months, and we’re close to losing our home. I’m working three jobs myself trying to keep us treading water while he’s waiting for “the right job.” I have encouraged him to continue doing this, but at the same time find a cash job like…

KNOXVILLE (AP) — City officials are looking for a buyer for retail property adjacent to a planned downtown movie theater. The city and Knoxville based-Regal Entertainment Corp. are jointly developing the cinema, with the city kicking in $3 million in financing and the theater operator providing $2.5 million in fixtures and furnishings. Plans originally called…