AP - Federal prosecutors investigating the West Virginia coal mine explosion that killed 29 men are working their way up the corporate ladder with criminal charges.
AP - After six hours of deliberations, jurors in the murder trial of a former University of Virginia lacrosse player are asking a second question about their instructions.
AP - The mayor and police director of New Jersey's largest city said Wednesday the New York Police Department misled their city and never told them it was conducting a widespread spying operation on Newark's Muslim neighborhoods. Had they known, they said, they never would have allowed it.
AP - A convicted rapist accused of killing a 16-year-old girl he met online pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder Wednesday, several days after authorities found the girl's body in a blue, plastic barrel in western Arkansas.
AP - Syrian gunners pounded an opposition stronghold where the last dispatches from a veteran American-born war correspondent chronicled the suffering of civilians caught in the relentless shelling. An intense morning barrage killed her and a French photojournalist — two of 74 deaths reported Wednesday in Syria.
AP - Pope Benedict XVI rode on a motorized cart in an Ash Wednesday procession, forsaking the traditional short walk between two Rome churches as the 84-year-old pontiff tries to conserve his energy.
AP - Washington state may not force pharmacies to sell Plan B or other emergency contraceptives, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, saying the state's true goal is to suppress religious objections by druggists — not to promote timely access to the medicines for people who need them.
AP - The mayor and police director of New Jersey's largest city said Wednesday the New York Police Department misled their city and never told them it was conducting a widespread spying operation on Newark's Muslim neighborhoods. Had they known, they said, they never would have allowed it.
AP - A train packed with morning commuters slammed into a barrier at the end of a line in Buenos Aires Wednesday, killing 49 people and injuring hundreds as passenger cars crumpled and windows exploded. It was Argentina's worst train accident in decades.
Reuters - The U.N. nuclear watchdog ended its latest mission to Iran after talks on Tehran's suspected secret atomic weapons research failed, a setback likely to increase the risk of confrontation with the West.
AP - The Supreme Court seemed divided Wednesday on whether to allow an Arkansas man to be retried on murder charges even though a jury forewoman said in open court that they were unanimously against finding him guilty.
Reuters - Supreme Court justices questioned on Wednesday whether the federal government, in making it a crime to lie about receiving a military medal, could next make it illegal for someone to tell lies about an extramarital affair or a college degree.
Time.com - In the face of continuing bloodshed in their homeland, one anti-Assad group courts the regime's allies in the Syrian business community and Moscow. Is it all in vain?
Time.com - A celebrated American-born war reporter and a young French photographer were killed on Wednesday morning when Syrian forces bombed a makeshift media center in the besieged city of Homs
Reuters - A U.S. judge on Wednesday ordered a Moroccan man to be held on charges that he planned a suicide bombing attack against Congress, believing he was working with al Qaeda militants when in fact his contacts were undercover agents.
AP - A gunman who was asked to leave a Korean health spa in an Atlanta suburb earlier in the day came back and shot two of his sisters and their husbands and then killed himself, police said Wednesday.
AP - Clashes between Afghan troops and protesters angry over the burning of Muslim holy books at a U.S. military base left at least seven people dead and dozens wounded Wednesday as anger spread despite U.S. apologies over what it said was a mistake.
AP - French police released former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Wednesday after nearly 30 hours in custody for questioning about a suspected hotel prostitution ring.
AP - President Barack Obama on Wednesday proposed a lower corporate tax rate and an end to dozens of loopholes he said helps companies move jobs and profits overseas. "It's not right and it needs to change," he said.
AP - Rick Santorum is looking for another upset or two, while Mitt Romney is hoping to keep his leading rival at bay in the run-up to the 20th debate of the race for the Republican presidential nomination.
ContributorNetwork - COMMENTARY | According to the Wall Street Journal, a proposal tucked into President Barack Obama's fiscal year 2013 budget proposal would triple the tax rate on corporate dividends. Obama claims this is a tax increase on the rich. But it will hammer elderly retirees.
AP - Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is officially in Senegal to observe this weekend's contentious election, met opposition candidates Wednesday in an effort to mediate a growing political standoff in this normally peaceful nation.
Daily Caller - Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign is arguing that reporters should ask rival Mitt Romney about his Mormon faith if they continue to scrutinize the former Pennsylvania senator’s Catholicism.
Reuters - Stocks fell on Wednesday with the S&P 500 stalled near a 10-month-old high after weak data on Europe's business activity raised concerns about a recession.
AP - Newark Mayor Cory Booker and his top police official say the city was misled by the New York Police Department and never would have authorized such wholesale spying on Muslims if they had known about it.
Reuters - A federal judge was expected to rule on Wednesday on whether Washington state can compel pharmacy owners to carry and sell the emergency contraceptive known as Plan B despite their personal religious objections to the drug.
Reuters - Republican Mitt Romney, looking for a boost in his presidential campaign, proposed an overhaul of the tax system on Wednesday that he said would cut Americans' tax rates by 20 percent and limit deductions for the wealthy.
AP - MGM Resorts International said Wednesday that high costs kept it in the red in the fourth quarter, but it lost less than a year earlier as more people stayed at its Las Vegas Strip casinos and visitors spent more on the food, gambling, entertainment and shopping it offers.
AP - General Motors Co. is in talks about a possible alliance with France's leading car maker PSA Peugeot Citroen, a deal that could dwarf PSA's partnerships with BMW, Mitsubishi Motors and Toyota.
Reuters - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces rained rockets and bombs down on opposition-held neighborhoods of the city of Homs on Wednesday, reducing buildings to rubble and killing more than 80 people, including two Western journalists.
Daily Caller - Running an image of Whitney Houston’s lifeless body on the cover is pretty par for the course for The National Enquirer, but it’s still a bit much.
Reuters - U.S. home resales rose to a 1-1/2 year high in January, pushing the supply of properties on the market to the lowest level in almost seven years in a hopeful sign for the housing sector.