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The Federal Reserve again has boosted the cost of borrowing for millions of consumers by raising short-term interest rates. The quarter-point hike -- the eighth since June 2004 -- bumps a key bank lending rate to 3 percent.

British voters go to the polls Thursday in an election that Prime Minister Tony Blair's Labour Party is expected to win. Voters appear ready to back a third Blair term despite anger at his government's support for the Iraq war.

The home of Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner was rededicated this weekend in Oxford, Miss. Rowan Oak, which underwent a $1.3 million restoration, draws more than 20,000 literary pilgrims each year.

Partisan tensions in the House of Representatives appear to have reached a new high. Lawmakers spent hours Tuesday night debating the fallout from a parental-consent bill passed last week. Democrats accused the Republican majority of deliberately misrepresenting amendments offered at a committee voting session on the measure.

Campaigning for Thursday's national election in Britain has proven particularly contentious in areas such as East London's Bethnal Green and Bow constituency, where the Iraq war is a key issue.

Thomas Jefferson High School in south Los Angeles recently has been the scene of three huge brawls, involving hundreds of black and Latino students and police in riot gear. Racial tensions plague the massive urban high school, which is also faces overcrowding and lack of resources.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is investigating 33 reports that Toyota's popular hybrid cars have stalled without warning. Toyota has also started its own inquiry into the Prius.

In Southern Sudan, the Sudanese People's Liberation Army is no longer a rebel group. Under a peace deal signed earlier this year to end Sudan's 22-year civil war, the former rebels will run the south of the country as a semi-autonomous province -- and must make the transition from guerrilla movement to government.

The first dominant big man of professional basketball has died. Basketball Hall of Famer George Mikan, who led the Minneapolis Lakers to five championships, was 80. Melissa Block talks to Tom Heinsohn, currently a commentator for Boston Celtics broadcasts and a former NBA All-Star player and coach.

Volker Schlondorff is an Academy Award-winning German filmmaker who has focused on many aspects of German culture and history, but vowed never to make a movie about concentration camps -- until now. The Ninth Day tells the story of a priest who is torn between what is best for the church and his people.