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San Francisco's year-old ban on plastic bags in grocery stores has cut use by 5 million plastic bags per month. Now, other cities are considering similar bans, and companies are developing alternatives to disposable bags.

Compared with Europe or China, the U.S. trade relationship with Colombia is probably not important enough to decide the future of our economy. But that hasn't stopped it from becoming a focus of this year's presidential campaign. And now President Bush is forcing Congress to act on the free trade deal.

Presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and John McCain are both campaigning in the Midwest. The region has the nation's highest unemployment rate, and the candidates are trying to show they understand what voters need to protect their jobs.

Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker are back on Capitol Hill Wednesday, in an effort to convince lawmakers to freeze U.S. troop levels in Iraq after a small drawdown in the summer. Petraeus and Crocker appear before the House Armed Services and Foreign Affairs committees today.

A modest free trade deal with Colombia has turned into a partisan brawl on Capitol Hill after the president provocatively sent the proposal to Congress with a 90-day deadline. The Democratic-led House voted to remove the timetable, which would have forced a potentially unpopular election-year vote.

Will Rinta, an emergency medical technician in Yacolt, Wash., talks with Michele Norris about the helicopter rescue of a 52-year-old man who fell hundreds of feet into the gaping crater of Mount St. Helens on Saturday. It's believed to be the first time a person has fallen into the crater.

The Commerce Department has revised second-quarter growth in gross domestic product to 3.3 percent, up from the previous estimate of 1.9 percent. The rate of increase is the fastest in nearly a year. Higher exports were credited for the increase.

Bank of America is acquiring Merrill Lynch in a $50 billion deal that could turn the big U.S. bank into a global financial-services powerhouse. But Bank of America must first successfully integrate the investment firm with its commercial bank operations.

As critics question her approach to Russia, aides to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice say she played a key role in getting Georgia to sign a peace plan with Russia and uniting NATO around a common response.

The conflict between Russia and Georgia has provided John McCain with an opportunity to stress his foreign policy credentials. But some have questioned whether he's using the crisis for political gain — and the origins of his ties to Georgia.