NEW YORK — There was the blind man who had the disastrous experience of regaining his sight. The surgeon who developed a sudden passion for music after being struck by lightning. And most famously, the man who mistook his wife for a hat. Those stories and many more, taking the reader to the distant ranges of human experience, came from the pen of Dr. Oliver Sacks.

 

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama will change the name of North America's tallest mountain peak from Mount McKinley to Denali, the White House says.

 

ROSEAU, Dominica — Rescue teams worked to reopen roads to remote communities in Dominica after Tropical Storm Erika caused flooding and mudslides that killed at least 20 people and left more than 50 missing on the Caribbean island.

 

AUSTIN, Texas — A statue of the president of the secessionist pro-slavery southern states is removed from its pedestal on the campus of the University of Texas at Austin, days after a court rejected an appeal from a Confederate heritage group.

 

MARACAY, Venezuela — A Venezuelan crime-fighting initiative launched this summer that aims to take back neighborhoods overrun by gangs has already seen police shoot and kill more than 80 suspected criminals, according to an AP tally based on officials' statements to the media, leading human rights groups to accuse security forces of carrying out summary executions

 

ROANOKE, Virginia — Community religious leaders gather to remember 24-year-old reporter Alison Parker and 27-year-old cameraman Adam Ward, the two television journalists who were shot and killed while working last week. By Jonathan Mattise.

 

NEW YORK — When Pope Francis sets foot on the tarmac at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington on Sept. 22, it won't just be his first time in the United States as pontiff. It will be his first time in the country — ever in his life.

 

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Wes Craven, the prolific writer-director who thrilled audiences with iconic and bloody suburban slashers like "Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Scream" that made his name synonymous with horror, has died at 76.

 

Kanye West gave a long rant at the MTV Video Music Awards as he apologized to Taylor Swift for taking her microphone in 2009, admitting "I don't understand awards shows" and claiming he would run for president in 2020.

 

ANDALUSIA, Pennsylvania — Nelson Shanks, a painter renowned for his portraits of prominent figures ranging from presidents to a pope to royalty, has died at 77. AP Photos.