A top Shiite cleric is dead in a bomb blast that killed as many as 75 in Najaf, Iraq.

Money from Indian-run casinos has become a key factor in the California recall election. The casinos are a major industry in California, and the tribes that run them have donated more than $120 million to legislative campaigns over the past five years.

When the State of Vermont became the first state to recognize civil unions, gay and lesbian couples flocked to the state for commitment ceremonies. Well now back home, some of these couples are seeking a divorce and their finding untying the knot a difficult issue.

Louise Gluck will be the nation's next poet laureate. Glick is a professor of English at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. She has published nine volumes of poetry and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993 for her book, "The Wild Iris." Louise Gluck reads one of her poems from that collection titled "The Red Poppy."

Gas prices nationwide are at record highs, and this holiday weekend there are estimates that more than 33 million Americans will travel 50 miles or more from home, the highest number in nine years. Gassing up the car and the tourism economy is the topic we're putting before our editorial roundtable this week.

Around Nashville, singer-songwriter Gillian Welch is recognized as a purveyor of the "hard country" sound. Welch isn't nostalgic. She says the best country songs can have as much grit as punk rock.

Our film panel marks Labor Day with some of their favorite movies about work — Paul Schrader's Blue Collar, the 1954 film, Salt of the Earth, and Norma Rae.