Growth in China car sales slows due to oil prices

The rapid growth in Chinese sales of sedans, SUVs and light trucks slowed sharply in July as sales rose just 6.8 percent over the same month of 2007, the lowest monthly expansion rate in two years, an industry group reported Friday.

Sales of sedans rose by just 1.6 percent, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

It was the fifth straight month that sales growth has declined. Growth was at double-digit monthly rates early this year.

China is the world's second-largest auto market after the United States, and global automakers are counting on it to drive revenues as sales elsewhere slump. But analysts say high oil prices …

Irish girls need strong finishing kick: ; Charleston Catholic trying not to tire before state meet

DAILY MAIL SPORTS EDITOR

Running well in the regular season's premier high school crosscountry meet - Elkins' Forest Festival - is nothing new forCharleston Catholic's girls team.

The problem in the past for the Irish has been maintaining thosesame fresh legs through the season's marquee event - the state meet -which is run on the same Forest Festival course at Davis & ElkinsCollege.

"We have had a habit of doing well at the (Forest Festival) andthen starting to fade as the season ends," Charleston Catholic CoachScott Welch said. "This year we're taking a different approach."

The highly competitive Forest Festival meet is considered a goodbarometer for …

Jazz Fight Back; Heat Limp Toward Loss

Staring at a big deficit on the road, the Utah Jazz decided to fight back. Facing the same circumstances, the only fight coming from the Miami Heat was with the referees. The struggling Heat lost their poise on the way to losing another game, falling 106-86 to the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday night.

Miami trailed by one after one quarter, but the deficit was 19 at the half. Dwyane Wade and Gary Payton were hit with technical fouls during the second period, and the Heat never really made it a game in the second half.

"In the second quarter we just stopped playing, we got frustrated. We went from competing in the first quarter to stop communicating with each other and …

A look at the top 10 trash items found worldwide

The top 10 debris items found worldwide during the Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Cleanup in September 2008:

_ Cigarettes and filters, 3,216,991

_ Plastic bags, 1,377,141

_ Food wrappers and containers, 942,620

_ Caps and lids, 937,804

_ Plastic bottles, …

HP unveils branded iPod replica Licensing deal should help Apple capitalize on HP's retail reach

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Hewlett-Packard Co. unveiled its own versionof Apple Computer's iPod portable music player Friday, showing thefruits of a groundbreaking partnership it had previously announcedwith Apple.

HP is now taking orders for the player, which it has dubbed the"Apple iPod from HP." The product is a replica of Apple's latestmodels of the popular white 20-gigabyte and 40-gigabyte iPods -- butcarries the HP brand instead.

The licensing deal is a break from Apple's usual isolationiststance, and should help it capitalize on the broad retail reach ofHP, the world's largest computer printer maker and second-largest PCmaker.

For HP, working with Apple, the …

flying off the shelves

Hardcover

Fiction

1. Changing Faces/ Kimberia Lawson Roby (New) ($24.95, William Morrow, ISBN 0-060-78077-0)

A chick lit novel on the friendship, love lives and tribulations of three women by a popular author.

2. Baby Brother's Blues: A Novel/ Pearl Cleage (New) ($23.95, One World/Ballantine, ISBN 0-345-48110-0

This veteran writer of consistently good and commercially successful literary fiction follows the life of Wesley "Baby Brother" Jamerson, a soldier on leave from duty in Iraq for his mother's funeral.

3. So You Call Yourself a Man/ Carl Weber (3) ($24, Dafina Books, ISBN 0-758-20718-2)

A tale of three best friends who've grown from …

6 Accused in Cheap-Gas Scheme

A gas station clerk is accused of defrauding her boss out of nearly $50,000 by selling fuel to her family and friends for a tenth of a penny a gallon.

Police arrested 25-year-old Madeline Jordan on Sunday _ along with her mother, brother, a cousin and two others _ after setting up a sting at the BP station in South Charleston.

The station's owner told police last week he had noticed a significant drop in his income and found …