Updated: 8:00 AM WASHINGTON (AP) - U.S. companies got more output from their workers this spring than initially thought. The modest gain may mean that hiring could stay sluggish this year.

Updated: 5:05 PM First lady Michelle Obama says her husband has never forgotten how he started and knows what it's like for struggling families.

Updated: 9:29 AM Democrats unveiled a party platform at their national convention Monday that echoes President Barack Obama's call for higher taxes on wealthier Americans while backing same-sex marriage and abortion rights.

Posted: 7:36 AM PASADENA, Calif. (AP) - Thirty-five years after leaving Earth, Voyager 1 is reaching for the stars.

Updated: 3:36 PM CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) - First lady Michelle Obama headlines the first night of the Democratic National Convention with a speech in Charlotte, N.C.

Updated: 11:24 PM About 300 firefighters are on the ground, while half a dozen water-dropping helicopters and a DC-10 tanker are in the air battling a wildfire in the Angeles National Forest northeast of Los Angeles.

Posted: 11:00 PM President Barack Obama says officials from all levels of government will do everything they can to assess the damage from Hurricane Isaac and figure out how to help.

Posted: 10:55 PM The potential for defense budget cuts and layoffs at Lockheed Martin loom over plans to deliver the first F-35 fighter jets to Nellis Air Force Base early next year, though no decision has been announced about which programs might get cut and where.

Posted: 7:21 PM Detroit police have released photos of a male "person of interest" in the theft of a Secret Service rental truck carrying equipment related to Vice President Joe Biden's Labor Day visit to Detroit.

Updated: 7:25 PM Michael Clarke Duncan, the hulking, prolific character actor whose dozens of films included an Oscar-nominated performance as a death row inmate in "The Green Mile" and such other box office hits as "Armageddon," ''Planet of the Apes" and "Kung Fu Panda," is dead at age 54.

Updated: 10:18 AM In his warm-up for the Democratic National Convention, President Barack Obama is tangling with a couple of rivals, only one named Mitt. The other is voter apathy, especially among the young.

Updated: 6:58 PM Much of Plaquemines Parish is still covered with floodwater and more than 200,000 people across Louisiana still don't have any power, five days after Hurricane Isaac ravaged the state.

Posted: 10:52 AM Republicans are trying to undermine Vice President Joe Biden's effectiveness as the Obama campaign's chief surrogate and liaison to white, working-class voters and seniors - two influential groups of voters being courted aggressively by both parties.

Posted: 10:13 AM Even though President Barack Obama's health care law could be repealed if he loses the White House this fall, some of his closest former advisers are proposing a new round of major changes aimed at controlling health costs.

Updated: 7:04 AM President Barack Obama is embarking on a four-day march through battleground states and the storm-battered Gulf Coast in the lead-up to his party's convention.

Updated: 12:05 PM Neil Armstrong never capitalized on his celebrity and just wanted to be part of a team - yet ended up making history and becoming an American hero, fellow astronauts said Friday as mourners gathered to celebrate the life of the first man to walk on the moon.

Updated: 5:30 PM American Airlines and US Airways are one step closer to a potential merger.

Posted: 11:20 PM Clint Eastwood whipped up the crowd at the Republican National Convention ahead of GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's acceptance speech.

Posted: 11:11 PM Isaac has weakened to a tropical depression after drenching southeast Louisiana and causing flooding.

Updated: 4:52 PM Accepting his party's nomination to be president, Republican Mitt Romney says he wants to restore the nation's promise by creating jobs for millions of unemployed Americans

Updated: 11:09 AM FEMA officials traveling with College Station-based Texas Task Force 1 were still waiting to move out from the staging area in Alexandria, Louisiana, Thursday morning.

Posted: 10:57 AM Louisiana officials have ordered evacuation of low-lying, sparsely-populated areas along the Tangipahoa River because an Isaac-hammered dam at a state park lake in southwest Mississippi near the Louisiana border is in danger of failing.

Updated: 10:35 AM Former President George W. Bush will be remembered fondly for his handling of the Sept. 11 attacks, members of the Bush family said in a tribute video shown here Wednesday at the Republican National Convention.

Updated: 8:50 AM FEMA officials with Texas Task Force 1 say they are still staging Thursday morning, waiting on winds to lessen before they are told to move in.

Updated: 8:06 AM The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits was unchanged last week at a seasonally adjusted 374,000, suggesting slow improvement in the job market.