Stocks plummeted yesterday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling more than 400 points and Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index closing down 53.24 points, at 1,140.65. The day was just the latest in a series of wild swings in financial markets in recent weeks. What's causing the severe fluctuations? We're taking a look at how "robot traders" — computers that are programmed to automatically buy or sell stocks based on a set of criteria — affect the markets. Could market woes be tied not to human worry, but to machine worry?

Gas prices are at record highs. And we want to know if it's changing what you do. Are you ditching the car? Changing your summer vacation plans? Help us gauge the nation on gas prices. Send your submission below or just text GAS to 69866.

Today, the FBI made its largest mob raid ever, arresting 127 suspects. We're talking about just how pervasive the mob is today. Have you ever had what you thought was a mob experience?

East Coast residents are keeping watching Hurricane Earl this week as the storm heads away from Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and up the east coast of the U.S., just in time to potentially disrupt Labor Day weekend. Earl is now a category 4 storm, with winds that have already hit 135 miles per hour.

At this point, Earl’s projected path shows it staying out at sea, parallel to the coast – big waves could reach North Carolina later today, and Long Island and Cape Cod by Friday. The National Hurricane Center is urging people along the coast from North Carolina to Maine to have a plan in case the hurricane comes ashore.

For most people living outside of the Gulf, Hurricane Katrina was a tragedy represented by tens of thousands of nameless faces. People waved frantically from rooftops or crowded into the Superdome, returning home only to find their houses and possessions destroyed. However, for fans of the award-winning graphic novel “A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge,” by Josh Neufeld, there are very specific names and faces attached to Katrina. Those people aren't just characters in a book either – they are real people. Five years after the hurricane, we follow up with two of them to see where their lives – and their city – are today.

When President Obama spoke recently at American University School of International Service in Washington, D.C., Univision anchor Jorge Ramos was watching very closely. Ramos is a familiar face at Univision, the spanish-language network, and he's also been pressing the Obama Administration to make good on its campaign pledge to reform immigration laws. It's been an issue for Ramos since 2008, when Obama was fighting for the nomination. Ramos gleaned this pledge from him: “What I can guarantee,” Obama said, “is that we will have in the first year [of the presidency] an immigration bill that I strongly support.” Ramos called it “La Promesa de Obama,” and he's been pressing the administration to make good on it ever since.

We've all heard a lot about Arizona's controversial and stringent immigration law, SB 1070, which allows Arizona police to question anyone they suspect may be in the country illegally. But 44 other states have introduced immigration legislation of their own since the beginning of 2010. Some worry that the U.S. may soon be facing a patchwork of different laws for different states.

Senate confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan begin today. But this news was overshadowed by the death this morning of Sen. Robert Byrd. 

Takeaway Washington correspondent, Todd Zwillich looks at the record of Sen. Byrd and previews the Kagan hearings, along with Jamal Greene, associate professor of law at Columbia Law School and former law clerk for Justice Stevens.

Last week in Afghanistan it was the changing of the guard for some Generals, McCrystal sent packing, General Petraeus packing for a return visit. But all across America every day, families are packing up and sending a loved one off to join the troop surge in Afghanistan. John Hockenberry hears some of the voices from the First Battalion, 87th Infantry of the 10th Mountain Division.

Sen. Robert C. Byrd served in Congress longer than anyone in the nation's history. The senator's office announced that he passed away at 3 a.m. Monday morning at a suburban Washington hospital. The West Virginia Democrat was 92, and was serving in an unprecedented ninth term in the U.S. Senate.

New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said yesterday that the bomb found in an S.U.V. Saturday evening in Times Square was amateurish and flawed, but could have been deadly.

Tuesday, the board of supervisors in Santa Clara County, California, decided to take a step further in the fight against obesity: they banned toy giveaways with kids' meals that don't meet certain nutritional standards. (Overall calorie count and salt content chief among them.)  This is the latest attempt in a series of measures taken by counties, cities and states to combat obesity, and is widely seen as specifically targeting McDonalds' Happy Meals.

Across the country, cash-strapped schools say budget cuts are forcing them to lay off teachers. Secretary of education Arne Duncan has called the layoffs — which may number in the hundreds of thousands — a potential catastrophe for the education system. The Takeaway talks to superintendents on opposite coasts who find themselves in similar positions. 

Justice John Paul Stevens announced on Friday that he will retire this June, after spending 35 years on the bench. Democrats say they want to move quickly into the nomination process in order to have the next justice confirmed by the end of the summer.

The federal government announced its first ever mandatory limits for particular greenhouse gas emissions, as the EPA and the Department of Transportation announced new emissions rules for automobiles and light trucks yesterday.

The Obama administration will announce a new approach to airport security today, which aims to allow U.S. agencies to share information on dangerous passengers before they board. New York Times White House reporter, Jeff Zeleny explains.

Feel restricted by that nine-to-five job? Or feel like your job is preventing you from enjoying your family or other things you find important in your life? President Obama and the first lady are trying to help. Today, the White House is holding a forum with CEO's, labor leaders and small business owners to look for "strategies for making the workplace more flexible." But how easy is it to set your own hours at the office?

When 28-year-old Jerry Lemaine of Long Island was told to plead guilty to ownership of a misdemeanor amount of marijuana posession, he probably didn't realize that it would result in his deportation to his family's home country of Haiti. Why is the American legal system levying such harsh penalties on non-citizens for minor infractions?

Bullying has long been a problem for school children and it seems that the level of violence is both increasing and spreading beyond the schoolyard on to the Internet. On Monday, charges for "unrelenting bullying" were filed against nine teenagers in the case of Phoebe Prince. The 15-year-old girl hanged herself in January after being tormented for months by other students at her high school. Two teenage boys were charged with statutory rape and a clique of girls were charged with stalking, criminal harassment and violating Phoebe's civil rights.

• CONGRESS: President Obama issued 15 recess appointments on Saturday. The procedure allows senior federal officials to be appointed without confirmation from the Senate. Washington correspondent Todd Zwillich explains the procedure, along with the Republican reaction.
• SPORTS: Sports contributor Ibrahim Abdul-Matin recaps the weekend's action in the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament and looks at who's left in the Final Four.