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From the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Reggie Aqui. Here's a look at what's happening NOW IN THE NEWS.

Hurricane Ike is still battering¹ Cuba, it's approaching now the Gulf² Coast. The National Hurricane Center says that Ike will likely gain strength as it moves into the Gulf in the next / few hours. Forecasters say the Category 1 storm could hit the Corpus Christi area of Texas by the end of the week. Evacuation buses are already gearing up to shuttle those Texans to safety. The state's governor has issued a disaster declaration for 88 counties in preparation for Ike. He also put 7,500 National Guard members on standby.

A newly appointed al-Qaeda chief in Pakistan is dead after being wounded in a missile attack on the compound of a key Taliban commander. That's according to a guard who was also wounded in the attack in northwestern Pakistan. The guard said the death toll³ from the strike reached 25. The White House says it has no additional comments on the report.

OPEC is having a big meeting in Vienna. Member countries are deciding just how much crudes are cranked out. Now Saudi Arabia is hinting that it'll keep production about the same. Iran thinks there is just too much crude on the market and it wants to pull back. OPEC usually follows the Saudi's lead. Oil prices, as a result, have taken a dip today, in part because the Saudis think the market is in balance.

New estimates say the federal budget deficit⁴ this year is a whopper. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 407 billion dollars for the budget year, year ending September 30th. That's a big jump from 246 billion from last year. But economists⁵ point out the deficit is about 3% of the total economy, a lot smaller than the deficits⁶ of the 1980s and early 90s.

Let's talk about your iPods and how they are now getting out-of-date. That's because Apple CEO Steve Jobs revealed the new version of the iPod Nano and also a new version of iTunes. Along with the new Nano, there are plenty of changes to the iTunes Music Store. The eighth version now recommends songs to buy and offers rentals⁷ and sales of high-definition TV shows.

Those are your headlines right now, please stick with us here at CNN for more on these stories and the other breaking news of the day.