A brief look at the stories making headlines in the Russian-language press

With the curtain falling on summer and the political season at hand, the news and analysis web site Forum.msk.ru last week posted the curious results of an opinion poll. The poll revealed a catastrophic decline in the approval ratings of the political parties that are currently represented in the State Duma.

It is a bad sign when headlines start to get confusing. Didn't I read this before, a couple of weeks, or maybe a month, ago? Did an underpaid hack, suffering from a hangover on a slow news day, decide to do some creative recycling? Or are news stories starting to run together in my head for some other reason -- perhaps because certain things are happening over and over again? I had that feeling of deja vu when I read about the Monday attack on National Bolshevik Party activists.

Federal forces raided a Chechen rebel hideout Wednesday, and a gunbattle left six people dead, including four militants who were suspected of planning a series of attacks in Chechnya, officials said.

U.S. Army engineers struggled without success to plug New Orleans' breached levees with giant sandbags, and the governor said Wednesday that the situation was worsening and that there was no choice but to abandon the flooded city.

A group of 30 Russian university students has been stranded for three days in a central New Orleans hotel surrounded by the floodwaters.

Crude oil prices turned lower Wednesday, after a top U.S. energy official said the government would release oil from its reserves.