AP - The last ferry left for the mainland and coastal residents hunkered down at home as Hurricane Earl closed in with 105 mph winds early Friday on North Carolina's dangerously exposed Outer Banks, the first and perhaps most destructive stop on the storm's projected journey up the Eastern Seaboard.

AP - A spokesman for Miami International Airport says four of its six concourses have been evacuated as a police bomb squad investigates a report of a suspicious item.

AP - An oil platform that burned off the Louisiana coast Thursday was the second such disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in less than five months. This time, the Coast Guard said there was no leak, and no one was killed.