Palin quizzed over Alaska sacking

Mrs Palin rejected the first ethics inquiry as politically motivated

US Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin has been questioned under oath over her alleged abuse of power as governor of Alaska.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama has halted campaigning to see his seriously ill grandmother, speaking of concerns that she might not live until election day.

Polls show Mr Obama's lead growing in some states, but narrowing in Florida.

His Republican rival John McCain is in Colorado as he seeks to take advantage of Mr Obama's absence from the trail.

Ethics questions

Mrs Palin took a break from campaigning in Pennsylvania and Missouri on Friday to give her deposition to the Alaska Personnel Board investigation.

The governor is accused of violating ethics rules when she fired the state's top law enforcement official, Walt Monegan, allegedly because he refused to sack her former brother-in-law, a state trooper.

Mr Obama will return to the campaign trail on Saturday

Mrs Palin spoke to the independent lawyer leading the inquiry - which was requested by herself - in an interview which lasted several hours.

Her husband, Todd, also gave a deposition to the lawyer, Timothy Petumenos.

An initial investigation by Alaska's state legislature found Mrs Palin did have the authority to remove Mr Monegan from his post but had breached ethics laws by seeking to have her ex-brother-in-law fired.

The McCain-Palin campaign dismissed the probe as politically motivated.

After Mrs Palin's testimony, campaign spokesman Taylor Griffin said she considered the deposition "an opportunity to get an unbiased, independent review of the facts".

'Gravely ill'

Mr Obama has travelled to Hawaii to be with Madelyn Dunham, his 85-year-old grandmother, and will return to the campaign trail on Saturday.

"Without going through the details too much, she's gravely ill," he told ABC news.

"We weren't sure and I'm still not sure whether she makes it to election day."

Mr Obama's visit to his grandmother comes as two leading Republicans announced they had chosen to endorse him rather than their party's own candidate.

Former Bush White House press secretary Scott McClellan and former Republican Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson threw their weight behind Mr Obama.

The news, only days after former Secretary of State Colin Powell gave his endorsement to the Democratic candidate, may dent Mr McCain's efforts to seize back the initiative, correspondents say.

Mr Obama also received an endorsement from the New York Times.

The newspaper said it was backing the Democratic candidate because he "has the will and the ability to forge the broad political consensus that is essential to finding solutions to this nation's problems".

Mr McCain spent Thursday campaigning in the key I-4 corridor in central Florida, travelling from the Atlantic coast to Sarasota on the Gulf of Mexico.

John McCain has been attacking Mr Obama over tax policy

He has been stepping up his attacks on Mr Obama as a tax-and-spend Democrat who wants to share the wealth.

"He's more concerned about using taxes to spread the wealth than creating a tax plan that creates jobs and grows our economy," Senator McCain told a cheering crowd at an Ormond Beach, Florida.

A Quinnipiac poll of Florida voters indicated that Mr Obama's eight-point lead on 1 October had contracted to 5%.