NEW YORK — The sell-off on Wall Street intensified Wednesday, sending the Dow Jones industrial average down more than 700 points after grim retail-sales data stoked fears that a punishing recession may be looming. The 8 percent plunge pushed the Dow back below the 9,000 level and erased most of the remaining gains from Monday’s torrid 936-point rally. A government report that retail sales slumped 1.2 percent in September – far worse than the 0.7 percent that economists had expected — provided the
spark for the sell off.
– Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles — Santa Ana winds slowed down on Wednesday, allowing firefighters to beat back the flames that have continued to move in on the northwestern suburbs of Los Angeles. The last evacuation orders were lifted for two extensive fire areas in the valley.
-USA Today OnlineThe Hubble Space Telescope, which shut down two weeks ago, began to reboot on Wednesday. The Telescope automatically went into “safe mode” when a router that formats data and relays it to the ground failed.
– New York Times Online