PENNSYLVANIA

Between 40,000 and 90,000 emergency workers and volunteers spent time sifting through the remains at Ground Zero, and were exposed to toxic materials that have been blamed for a range of respiratory illnesses and other ailments.

Gaffe-prone Vice President Joe Biden offended many Twitter users while describing Sept. 11 as "bittersweet" during a ceremony Tuesday for those who lost their lives on United Flight 93, which crashed in a Pennsylvania field.

No political dirt will be thrown about Tuesday as Obama and Romney have agreed to take negative campaign ads off the air to honor the 9/11 anniversary.

Perennial battleground states Ohio and Florida top the list of where the Obama and Romney campaigns are spending, and that is not unexpected. Pennsylvania, though, is very far from the top -- and that is a big surprise.

As the nation remembers the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, a report in the New York Times states that there were some activities the summer before the attacks that would have looked suspicious had the administration taken the warnings more seriously.

On the eve of the 11th anniversary of the terror attacks, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta visited the Flight 93 National Memorial in western Pennsylvania, "the final resting place of American patriots."

Yosemite National Park authorities have doubled the estimate of those likely infected in a recent outbreak of the hantavirus, a deadly pulmonary disease commonly carried by mice and other rodents.

The National Weather Service issued a severe weather advisory for much for the Northeast on Saturday as a tornado touched down in Queens, New York. Flooding was reported in Queens, while parts of New England braced for the storm.

Terry Williams, who has spent nearly his entire adult life in prison, allegedly experienced long-term sexual abuse at the hands of the man he murdered in 1986.

President Obama's address, as pundits noted, did not inspire the kind of enthusiasm that his speeches have become known for.

Christopher Shell started the celebration of his 29th birthday as a passenger of US Airways Flight 1267. He then became a suspect in an investigation of explosives on board the Philadelphia-to-Dallas flight, but was later cleared as a victim of the hoax. Yet the Philadelphia man may still wind up in jail from charges based on unrelated outstanding warrants.

Rep. John Lewis recounted the story of his beating during "Bloody Sunday" 1965 in Selma, and warned of threats to voting rights.

Of the 10,000 people thought to be at risk of contracting hantavirus pulmonary syndrome from their stays in Yosemite between June and August, some 2,500 live outside the United States.

Romney and Obama's stances on how to handle Syria are similarly circumspect, but that hasn't stopped the two campaigns from criticizing each others' foreign policy approaches.

Ever since President Barack Obama revealed that he commissioned the White House kitchen to create a homebrewed beer for the White House, beer enthusiasts have been going nuts wondering what the recipe is, even going as far as setting up an online petition. Now, the White House has responded and released its recipe for presidential Honey Ale and Honey Porter beer.

In one of the less surprising developments of the week, it turns out Al Gore is not a big fan of the U.S. electoral college.

In a victory for the Obama administration, a federal court has rejected a new law requiring Texans to present photo identification before being allowed to vote.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was officially nominated as the GOP's 2012 presidential candidate at the Republican National Convention Tuesday evening in Tampa.

Former U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania is fighting for his life after being recently diagnosed with a form of cancer.

One man has struggled to rein in a fractious tea party wing of his party, another harnessed those tea party-affiliated voters to become Mitt Romney's most formidable challenger, and the last could be standing where Romney is in 2016.

Long-Shot Republican U.S. Senate candidate Tom Smith of Pennsylvania stepped into the politically treacherous waters of the women's rights debate on Monday, making himself the latest in an ever-growing list of GOP politicos who have found themselves putting their feet in their mouths after flubbing a comment on the topic.