Evening Edition

A Gallup poll last week found Obama’s poll numbers in the African American community down from its once stratospheric 95 percent approval early in his term, to a still-high, but notably lower 81 percent — tying his worst ever showing from earlier this year.

Realclearpolitics.com, which compiles an average of major polls, put the president’s approval rating among all Americans at 43.5 percent.

Interpreters interviewed at military and police facilities near Mosul in north Iraq all said they fear for their safety.

But accepting special visas to the US still means leaving their country and in some cases their families for an uncertain future — an incredibly tough choice to make.

And with the Washington area baking in record-breaking temperatures this summer, winemakers in the little-known vineyards of Maryland and Virginia think this could be the year that puts them on the map.

“We’re anticipating a great vintage this year,” said Carol Wilson who, with her husband Fred, has been making wine since 1979 at the Elk Run vineyard in Mount Airy, Maryland, an hour and a half north of Washington.

Canada, however, must still agree to the repatriation plan hatched by Norwegian investors, amid strong opposition from locals in the Canadian territory of Nunavut who want the ship to stay for tourists to admire from shore.

The wreck now sits at the bottom of Cambridge Bay in Nunavut, but its hulk is partly visible above the frigid waters that preserved it for decades.

Two days after their irregular armies launched pincer thrusts into Tripoli in tandem with an uprising in the city, Gaddafi’s tanks and sharpshooters appeared to hold only small areas, including his Bab al-Aziziya headquarters compound.

Gaddafi’s whereabouts were not known. Rebels said they held three of his sons, including his heir apparent Seif al-Islam.

The implosion of Gaddafi’s rule after six months of civil war in which the rebels benefited from sanctions on Gaddafi, a no-fly zone and NATO air strikes may have implications for Syri’s six-month-old revolt and Assad’s efforts to crush it.

“The international community will now think that its strong intervention in the struggle (in Syria) will resolve the situation,” said opposition figure Louay Hussein.

If peace takes hold in Africa’s largest oil producer after a six-month civil war, the long-dormant economy could rapidly flourish provided there has been no substantial damage to the oil and gas infrastructure underpinning its national wealth.

Much remains undecided as anti-government forces gain control of Tripoli in their final push to end the four-decade rule of Muammar Gaddafi but a new Libyan government could herald a bonanza for Western companies and investors.

Brent pared losses, bouncing with rallying U.S. crude on the day the September contract expired as rising Wall Street equities provided a boost.

Brent crude’s forward curve flattened in the months through early next year and its premium to U.S. crude fell on hopes that a swift end to Libya’s civil war would bring the country’s oil exports back to the market.

Elsewhere in the currency bloc, a week-long row over Finnish demands that Greece cough up collateral as a condition for new bailout loans raged on, with the Netherlands condemning a bilateral deal between Helsinki and Athens as illegal.

Rating agency Moody’s warned that the dispute could end up delaying approval of a new aid package for Greece, driving it into default.

Ford and Toyota plan to collaborate on product development for the future rear-wheel drive hybrid vehicles, as well as for telephone, Internet and entertainment systems.

Developing the hybrids will help each automaker meet stringent U.S. fuel economy standards in coming years, said Takeshi Uchiyamada, vice president for Toyota research and development, and Derrick Kuzak, Ford’s product development chief.

Fifteen years after a Congressional Joint Resolution in 1996 to establish a memorial in Washington, D.C. to honor King, the four-acre site on the Tidal Basin between the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials opened to the public for the first time.

“From a geometrical standpoint it’s on a direct line between the Lincoln Memorial and Jefferson Memorial,” said Bill Line, spokesman for the National Park Service. “The brains and essence of our country (Thomas Jefferson), and Abe Lincoln, the greater uniter.”

The international community called on Gadhafi to step down and moved ahead with post-war planning as euphoric rebel supporters celebrated in Green Square, the symbolic heart of the fading Gadhafi regime. Colleagues warned the leader would not go easily, even after three of his sons were arrested.

“The real moment of victory is when Gadhafi is captured,” Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, the head of the rebels’ National Transitional Council, told a news conference in the opposition’s de facto capital of Benghazi in the east, hundreds of miles from Tripoli.

Around noon Sunday, we were waiting at a rebel checkpoint in the coastal town of Jedaim, on the main road to the Libyan capital, the main stronghold of Moammar Gadhafi’s regime.

All morning, rebel trucks with mounted guns had been rushing forward to clash with Gadhafi’s forces somewhere in the 25 miles (40 kilometers) between us and the capital. Ambulances occasionally came screaming back, giving us an unclear picture of the rebels’ progress toward what could be the final stage in the six-month rebel struggle to chase Gadhafi from power.

The idea is being pushed most forcefully by conservative activists eager to shrink the government and its spending but disappointed with the results they’ve achieved so far in Washington, where Democrats control both the White House and the Senate.

“Spending cuts and caps are steps in the right direction,” said Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas. But a balanced budget amendment is “the only permanent solution to control government spending and end our nation’s spending-driven debt crisis,” Sessions said.