AFP - US President Barack Obama Wednesday sought to box in his Republican foes on the economy, as the lagging recovery and crippling unemployment threaten Democrats with a mid-term election meltdown.

Reuters - President Barack Obama, fighting to keep Democrats in charge of Congress, will push his latest plan to kick-start the economy on Wednesday and set up an election-year battle with Republicans over Bush-era tax cuts.

AP - Suddenly, the race for Chicago mayor is on. Mayor Richard M. Daley has thrown the competition for the city's top job wide open by announcing he won't run for a seventh term, ending 21 years of token opposition and prompting speculation about who's next in line to lead the nation's third largest city.

AP - Suddenly, the race for Chicago mayor is on. Mayor Richard M. Daley has thrown the competition for the city's top job wide open by announcing he won't run for a seventh term, ending 21 years of token opposition and prompting speculation about who's next in line to lead the nation's third largest city.

Reuters - The Standard & Poor's 500 index rose more than 1 percent in afternoon trading on Wednesday, while the Dow and Nasdaq added to gains as worries about Europe's banking system decreased, easing risk aversion.

AP - Wind-whipped flames swept through at least three Detroit neighborhoods, destroying dozens of homes, including many that were vacant, officials said.

AP - Oil prices followed stocks higher on Wednesday, as worries about European debt problems eased and buyers returned to the market.

AP - Authorities are searching for eight people who have not been accounted for as a wildfire tore through their neighborhoods this week.

Reuters - Members of Goldman Sachs Group Inc's New York Principal Strategies team are in talks with several groups, including KKR, Perella Weinberg and BlackRock Inc, to possibly join one of them, a source familiar with the matter said.

AP - Most of the country will see a colder-than-usual winter while summer and spring will be relatively cool and dry, according to the time-honored, complex calculations of the "Old Farmer's Almanac."

AP - The leader of a small Florida church that espouses anti-Islam philosophy said Wednesday he was determined to go through with his plan to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11, despite pressure from the White House, religious leaders and others to call it off.

AP - The FBI on Wednesday was trying to determine whether a passenger staged a bomb hoax that prompted a search of a Thai Airways jetliner at Los Angeles International Airport.

AP - In an internal report released Wednesday, BP blames itself, other companies' workers and a complex series of failures for the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill and the drilling rig explosion that preceded it.

Reuters - President Barack Obama will push billions of dollars in new business tax incentives and spending on big construction projects on Wednesday, as he tries to convince a balky Congress to pass measures intended to spur the economy and create jobs.

AP - Its power spent, what was left of Tropical Storm Hermine made its way north Wednesday, drenching a large swath of Texas and prompting a search for possible flood victims near Austin.

AP - The senior Sinn Fein politician in Northern Ireland's government acknowledged Wednesday that he did meet a Catholic priest responsible for a 1972 triple car bombing that killed nine civilians but insisted they never discussed the IRA attack.

AFP - The European Union said Wednesday it had suspended a request at the World Trade Organization for the right to impose sanctions on Washington over a controversial US anti-dumping calculation.

AP - Seldom visible in the Yemeni mountains, the elite U.S. commandos training the Yemen's military represent the Obama administration's quest to fight terrorism without inflaming anti-American sentiment.

AP - Smithfield Foods Inc. said Wednesday higher selling prices for pork and improvement in hog market prices helped it return to a profit in its fiscal first-quarter.

Reuters - Stubbornly high unemployment and signs of persistent weakness in the housing market have prompted economists to further cut their outlook for U.S. growth in the second half of the year, a Reuters poll showed on Wednesday.

Reuters - Stubbornly high unemployment and signs of persistent weakness in the housing market have prompted economists to further cut their outlook for U.S. growth in the second half of the year, a Reuters poll showed on Wednesday.

AFP - US stocks were slightly up on Wednesday after news of a successful Portuguese debt auction eased the previous day's concerns about the European economy.

AP - President Barack Obama is voicing unwavering opposition to extending Bush-era tax breaks for the nation's wealthiest families even for a year or two, drawing a sharp contrast with Republicans eight weeks before the November elections.

AP - President Barack Obama is voicing unwavering opposition to extending Bush-era tax breaks for the nation's wealthiest families even for a year or two, drawing a sharp contrast with Republicans eight weeks before the November elections.

AP - Police Chief Charlie Beck pleaded for calm and vowed his department would conduct an exhaustive investigation into a bicycle officer's fatal shooting of a drunken day laborer with a knife.

AP - The lead BP PLC investigator is saying that eight separate failures had to occur for the company's deepwater well to unleash the largest offshore oil spill in history.

Reuters - Women's clothing retailer Talbots Inc posted lower-than-expected quarterly sales and its shares fell 11.6 percent as efforts to keep inventory lean and preserve margins left it short of items to sell.

AP - German exports dipped by 1.5 percent in July compared with the previous month but were still up a strong 18.7 percent over the same month last year, official data showed Wednesday.

AFP - US President Barack Obama Wednesday threw down the gauntlet to Republicans on the economy, as the lagging recovery and crippling unemployment threaten Democrats with a mid-term election meltdown.