WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- Democrats say Republican Sen. John McCain accepted his party's U.S. presidential nomination without saying what he'd do to solve America's problems.

"I heard nothing that suggests the Republicans are ready to fix the economy for middle-class families," Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., said in a statement after McCain's speech Thursday night.

Clinton, who lost the Democratic nomination to Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and threw her support to him, said her general election campaign cry now is "No way, no how, no McCain-Palin."

Electing McCain and his running mate, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, would mean four more years of the Republican politics that have dragged down American, said Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton.

The Democrats have made trying to link U.S. President George Bush and McCain the central part of their argument against the Republican candidate. Democratic Party fundraising messages issued after McCain's speech focused on that.

McCain "talked about bipartisanship but didn't mention that he's been a Bush partisan 90 percent of the time," Burton told CNN.

Aides: Palin cramming for first debate

WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- Campaign aides say several foreign policy experts are helping U.S. Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin cram for a debate less than a month away.

U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, Ind.-Conn., who was the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee, is among those helping Palin prepare for her debate with Democratic opponent, Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, The Washington Post (NYSE:WPO) reported Friday.

Palin, the governor of Alaska, has little foreign policy experience but is a quick study with sound judgment, said Palin spokeswoman Maria Comella, who provided a list of 15 foreign trade representatives, including officials from China, Thailand, Norway and Seychelles, whom Palin met with as governor.

Privately, some Republican foreign policy experts said they worry about putting Palin on the ticket at a time when the United States is facing challenges ranging from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to the atomic activities of Iran and North Korea, the Post reported.

Tropical storm kills 137 in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- The death toll in Haiti from Tropical Storm Hanna reached 137, U.N. officials in the poor Caribbean nation said.

Up to 600,000 people are also in need of some kind of emergency aid, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported Thursday.

Haiti's third-largest city Gonaives was decimated by Hanna as the storm lingered over the island nation for four days.

"In Gonaives alone, we have some 70,000 people in shelters and around 250,000 around Gonaives City need our assistance and that of the government," Joel Boutroue, the United Nation's coordinator for aid in Haiti, told the BBC. "And throughout the country I would say around up to 600,000 people might require our assistance."

Power outages remain in Louisiana

NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- Utility officials say power has been restored to 41 percent of those in the hurricane-affected New Orleans area but add reaching everyone will take time.

The utility company Entergy has restored electricity to 342,000 customers who lost power during Hurricane Gustav, but other areas, such as lower Jefferson Parish may have to wait until mid-September to see the lights come back on, The Times-Picayune, a New Oreleans newspaper, reported Friday.

Many officials and residents, including Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, question how a hurricane that was milder than predicted could cause such widespread outages at Louisiana's largest utility.

Entergy officials defended their company's response, saying Gustav was the second-worst storm in the company's history after Hurricane Katrina.

Randy Helmick, an Entergy vice president, told The Times-Picayune the problem lies with the geography of New Orleans. Because New Orleans is bounded by water, Entergy can bring in transmission lines only from the north and west, so it has fewer options to reconnect communities in a disaster, Helmick said.

Officials: No Iraq troop cuts before 2009

WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 (UPI) -- It will be 2009 before U.S. troop levels can be reduced in Iraq because of logistics involved in redeployment, military officials say.

U.S. President George Bush is reportedly considering secret recommendations about troop levels from U.S. Army Gen. David Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, and others.

Two military officials told CNN it would be "impractical" to reduce troop levels further before the end of the year. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the officials wouldn't disclose specific recommendations.

But they confirmed a consensus among military leaders that the soonest troop reductions could be accomplished would be early in 2009 when a brigade from the 10th Mountain Division, scheduled to deploy to Iraq, could go to Afghanistan instead, CNN said.