USA

Frances, the hurricane that turned into a tropical storm, completed its two-day assault on Florida and was pouring up to five inches of rain on south-central Georgia, with another two to four inches possible overnight. Because of winds of 115 m.p.h. that felled trees and power lines when Frances made landfall Sunday along the Atlantic coast, about 3 million people were without power. Basic supplies were in short supply, especially gasoline. Frances did more damage to the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral than any other storm in history, tearing 1,000 exterior panels from a vehicle assembly building. No space shuttles were inside, however. Meanwhile, Frances and hurricane Charley, which arrived several weeks earlier, combined for an estimated $300 million in damage to citrus groves and foliage and greenhouse products.

President Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry began the eight-week countdown to the Nov. 2 election with strongly worded Labor Day campaign rhetoric. After a stop in West Virginia, at which Kerry told miners that Bush's middle initial, "W," stands for "wrong," he issued a statement calling the war in Iraq a "quagmire" created by the president's "wrong-headed, go-it-alone" policy. Bush lashed back, accusing his opponent of vacillating on Iraq even after bringing in new campaign advisers. Speaking before a crowd of 20,000 supporters in Poplar Bluff, Mo., Bush said: "No matter how many times Senator Kerry changes his mind, it was right for America, and it's right for America now, that Saddam Hussein is no longer in power."

This year's federal budget will run a record $422 billion deficit, according to a forecast released Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office. The amount, while lower than earlier projections, surpasses last year's $375 billion shortfall. The figure is a political football, interpreted differently along party lines.

Teenagers who watch television shows with large amounts of sexual content are twice as likely to engage in intercourse as those who watch few such programs, results of a new study published in Pediatrics, the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said.

Fijian Vijay Singh ended the five-year reign of Tiger Woods as professional golf's cumulative world rankings leader by securing a three-shot victory Monday over Woods and Adam Scott at the Deutsche Bank Championship in Norton, Mass.