HCS Information Exchange

(Sept. 4) -- Far from the powerful hurricane forecasters and residents feared, Tropical Storm Earl is on its way to Canada today after spoiling weekend beach plans but wreaking less damage than expected in battened-down U.S. towns.

(Sept. 4) --Fans can't be blamed for thinking this was already common knowledge, but in fact, the departure of Kara DioGuardi from 'American Idol' has been merely a presumption all summer -- until now. On the Friday evening before Labor Day, Fox quietly issued a press release confirming what everyone has suspected for weeks: the 39-year-old singer-songwriter-producer will not return as a judge on 'Idol.'

(Sept. 3) -- Wanda Rodriguez, a 41-year-old nurse, meets her long-lost father when he is admitted to the hospital where she works.

(Sept. 3) -- In the 1980s, the CIA sent mules to Afghanistan to help ferry weapons to anti-Soviet fighters. Now, the U.S. military is looking to send robotic pack mules that can carry supplies around the battlefield and lighten the load of overburdened soldiers.

(Sept. 3) -- Presidential campaigns aren't for the faint of heart, but John Bolton may just have the guts to launch one. The former ambassador to the United Nations, whom Time magazine once called "the angriest neocon" and The Daily Caller more recently dubbed the "Criticizer-in-Chief" for his swipes at the Obama administration, is considering a run for president in 2012.

(Sept. 3) -- Miami's airport is back in full operation today after four terminals were ordered evacuated when a luggage screener spotted something suspicious in a passenger's bag. A 70-year-old scientist once acquitted of illegally transporting bubonic plague was questioned in the investigation, then released without charges.

(Sept. 3) -- You can't rush the recovery. That's the bottom line of the monthly employment report out today from the Labor Department, which shows American industry continued to create jobs in August but at an anemic rate. And that's an inconvenient political truth for the Obama administration going into the Labor Day weekend.

(Sept. 3) -- Miami's airport is back in full operation today after four terminals were ordered evacuated when a luggage screener spotted something suspicious in a passenger's bag. A 70-year-old scientist questioned in the investigation was reportedly released without charges.

(Sept. 3) -- Let's see now, where was I? Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer's halting, jumbled, grinning (inappropriately) performance in her televised debate with Democrat Terry Goddard almost made a viewer want to look away in embarrassment -- for her.

(Sept. 3) -- Hurricane Earl churned past the North Carolina Outer Banks, and its powerful gusts and driving rains were starting to be felt in southeastern Virginia early Friday, the beginning of at least 24 hours of stormy, windy weather along the East Coast.

(Sept. 3) -- Hurricane Earl will remain a formidable storm as it races northeast along the Atlantic Coast today, churning close to southeastern New England as a hurricane tonight and then making landfall in the Canadian Maritimes on Saturday as a tropical storm.

(Sept. 3) -- The Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal was long believed to work alone in his tireless obsession to find Adolf Hitler's war comrades, but a new book asserts he often really worked for the Israeli spy agency Mossad.

(Sept. 3) -- The Coast Guard reports that the fire that followed the explosion of Mariner Energy's Vermilion Block 380 has been successfully put out, but is still unable to confirm reports of a mile-long oil sheen from the platform site.

(Sept. 3) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas flew back from Washington after his first direct peace talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to an uncertain welcome and an unpredictable political future.

(Sept. 3) -- (Sept. 3) -- Americans received some rare good news about the U.S. economy Friday, with a report from the Labor Department that the private sector added 67,000 jobs in August, more than the 40,000 gain economists had forecast.

(Aug. 3) -- The unemployment rate rose in August for the first time in four months as weak hiring by private employers wasn't enough to keep pace with a large increase in the number of people looking for work.

(Sept. 2) -- Still reeling from outsider Joe Miller's improbable defeat of GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski in Alaska, Republicans in Delaware are staging an all out assault on the Tea Party Senate candidate in their state, hoping to preserve the chances of party favorite Rep. Mike Castle.

(Sept. 3) -- BP (BP) warned that any legislation that stops it from drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico could prevent the oil giant from paying out compensation related to this year's oil spill.