AP - President Barack Obama's sweeping health care legislation won precious support from a longtime liberal holdout in the House on Wednesday and from Catholic nuns representing dozens of religious orders, gaining fresh traction in the run-up to a climactic weekend vote.
AP - The man who has led Iraq for the past four years is battling for his political survival just as U.S. troops are getting ready to pack up and go home.
AP - Israel on Wednesday lifted its tight restrictions on Palestinian access to Jerusalem's holiest shrine and called off an extended West Bank closure after days of clashes between Palestinians and Israeli security forces.
AP - Idaho Gov. C.L. "Butch" Otter is the first state chief executive to sign a measure requiring his attorney general to sue the federal government if Congress passes health care reform.
AP - The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday that it remains the goal of U.S. troops to capture Osama bin Laden alive and "bring him to justice."
AP - The growing front in the war on terrorism may be no farther than Main Street. The terror cases that have emerged in the past week have one common characteristic: The suspects are all Americans.
AP - A series of children's textbooks on Islam contains misleading and inflammatory rhetoric about the religion, inaccurately portraying its followers as inherently violent and deserving of suspicion, according to a Muslim civil liberties group.
AP - An announcement at a Walmart store in New Jersey ordering black people to leave brought chagrin and apologies Wednesday from leaders of the company, which has built a fragile trust among minority communities.
Sleeping man shocked after cold man jumps into bed (AP)
AP - Police said a man broke into a Pittsburgh home and climbed into bed with its owner, apparently because he was drunk and cold following a rap concert. Homeowner Frank Fontana says he was in bed when the man climbed in about 5:30 Wednesday morning. Fontana says he asked whether it was a woman who has keys to his home — and he grabbed a baseball bat when a deep male voice answered, "No, it's not."
AP - Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington failed a Major League Baseball test for cocaine last season, but has apologized and will keep his job. "I made a huge mistake and it almost caused me to lose everything I have worked for all of my life," Washington said at a news conference Wednesday. "I am not here to make excuses. There are none."
Reuters - President Barack Obama picked up support for healthcare reform on Wednesday from a former critic and from a group of Catholic nuns, who broke with bishops on the abortion issue and urged final passage of the Senate overhaul.
Would U.S. forces kill or capture bin Laden? (Reuters)
Reuters - Would U.S. forces kill or capture al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, if they ever found him? The goal is to capture him, the Pentagon insists, but the leading U.S. law enforcement official says that's not likely.
First of several job-creation bills clears Congress (Reuters)
Reuters - A package of tax breaks and highway spending cleared the Congress on Wednesday, the first of what Democrats hope will be several efforts to bring down the 9.7 percent unemployment rate.
Insurer targeted HIV patients to drop coverage (Reuters)
Reuters - In May, 2002, Jerome Mitchell, a 17-year old college freshman from rural South Carolina, learned he had contracted HIV. The news, of course, was devastating, but Mitchell believed that he had one thing going for him: On his own initiative, in anticipation of his first year in college, he had purchased his own health insurance.
Five Americans charged with terrorism in Pakistan (Reuters)
Reuters - A Pakistani court formally charged Wednesday five young Americans of plotting terrorism in the country, their lawyer said, in a case that has raised alarm over the danger posed by militants using the Internet.
Reuters - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki reclaimed the lead on Wednesday over secularist challenger Iyad Allawi in results from a March 7 parliamentary election that has been dogged by fraud allegations.
U.S. believes key al Qaeda planner killed in Pakistan (Reuters)
Reuters - A U.S. drone strike in Pakistan last week appears to have killed a top al Qaeda planner who Washington believes helped organize December's deadly suicide bombing at a CIA base in Afghanistan, U.S. officials said on Wednesday.
Reuters - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Barack Obama on Wednesday after a disagreement over Jewish settlements, to distance himself from his brother-in-law calling the U.S. president an anti-Semite.
AFP - Israel on Wednesday dismissed mounting pressure to stop building homes for Jewish settlers in annexed east Jerusalem, with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman saying the demands were "unreasonable."
AFP - Basque ETA militants were accused Wednesday of killing a policeman in a shoot-out near Paris, the first deadly attack on a French officer in the separatist group's 40-year campaign.
