Reuters - Japan's government sharpened its rhetoric on foreign exchange intervention on Wednesday as a rise in the yen to a 15-year high underlined concerns that the currency's strength could threaten the economic recovery.
AP - Mexican prosecutors say two dead bodies found in the northern state of Tamaulipas appear to be those of a state detective and local police chief who were investigating the massacre of 72 migrants in August.
AFP - Australia's newly elected Prime Minister Julia Gillard pledged to serve a full term after scraping back into power but her fragile coalition was immediately at odds over a major new tax Wednesday.
AP - Men armed with assault rifles burst into a shoe factory and opened fire Tuesday, killing at least 18 workers and wounding five, Honduran authorities said.
AFP - British prime minister Winston Churchill deliberately let millions of Indians starve to death, the author of a new book has claimed, alleging he was motivated in part by racial hatred.
Reuters - Foster's Group Ltd , Australia's largest brewer, has rejected a private equity offer worth up to $2.5 billion for its wine unit as too cheap and plans to continue with the split of its beer and wine businesses.
AP - A proposed Islamic community center near ground zero will include separate prayer spaces for Muslims, Christians, Jews and people of other faiths, the imam behind plans for the facility wrote in an op-ed piece published online Tuesday.
AP - Emergency teams with helicopters rescued 34 workers Wednesday from an oil drilling platform that was leaning dangerously in the East China Sea after a storm, and searched for two others still missing, officials said.
CQPolitics.com - ABERDEEN, S.D. -- Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin holds a lot of sway with some Republican voters. But that hasn't stopped South Dakota state Rep. Kristi Noem from distancing herself from the polarizing political figure in her challenge to four-term incumbent Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D).
AP - Diplomatic tensions between China and Japan escalated Wednesday when Beijing called in Japan's ambassador after a Chinese fishing boat collided with two Japanese patrol vessels near a chain of disputed islands and Tokyo arrested the boat's captain.
AP - David Myers knew it was time to leave when he looked out into the forest and spotted bright red flames towering skyward. Then came a blinding cloud of smoke and a deafening roar as the fire ripped through the wilderness.
Reuters - Republicans in Congress showed little willingness to help President Barack Obama approve billions of dollars in measures to boost the economy with midterm elections less than two months away.
Reuters - Republicans in Congress showed little willingness to help President Barack Obama approve billions of dollars in measures to boost the economy with midterm elections less than two months away.
AP - The government turned up the pressure Tuesday on the head of a small Florida church who plans to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11, warning him that doing so could endanger U.S. troops and Americans everywhere.
AP - Police Chief Charlie Beck on Tuesday promised a thorough, transparent investigation into an officer's shooting of a knife-wielding man whose death sparked a violent protest in a poor immigrant neighborhood.
AP - Officials hoisted a 70-foot piece of World Trade Center steel at ground zero Tuesday and vowed to open the Sept. 11 memorial by next year, although they acknowledged that the ongoing construction at the site would limit where and how the public could visit.
AP - Mayor Richard M. Daley, who wielded more control over Chicago than anyone but his father decades before, said Tuesday he will not seek re-election, bringing a surprising end to a dynasty whose name became synonymous with the city's legendary political machine.
AP - Mayor Richard M. Daley, who wielded more control over Chicago than anyone but his father decades before, said Tuesday he will not seek re-election, bringing a surprising end to a dynasty whose name became synonymous with the city's legendary political machine.
AP - The United Nations reported Tuesday that more than 500 systematic rapes were committed by armed combatants in eastern Congo since late July — more than double the number previously reported — and accepted partial responsibility for not protecting citizens.
AP - Their control of the House in peril, Democrats are scratching to survive in races all across the country. Disgruntled voters, a sluggish economy and vanishing enthusiasm for President Barack Obama have put 75 seats or more — the vast majority held by Democrats — at risk of changing hands.
AP - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday called a Florida church's threat to burn copies of the Muslim holy book to mark the ninth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks a "disrespectful, disgraceful act."
AP - A magnitude-5.1 aftershock hammered New Zealand's earthquake-hit city of Christchurch on Wednesday morning, freshly damaging buildings, sparking evacuations and prompting the extension of a state of emergency for another week.
AP - Tropical Storm Hermine gave a wet and windy punch to Texas on Tuesday before weakening into a tropical depression, leaving only minor scrapes in the storm-weary Rio Grande Valley, which is proving resilient this hurricane season after taking a third tropical system on the chin.
AP - Billionaire philanthropist George Soros is putting up $100 million, one of the largest donations of its kind, to expand Human Rights Watch and help it court more international support.
AP - President Barack Obama's proposed tax breaks for business sound like ideas that have enjoyed broad Republican backing in the past. But in today's toxic political atmosphere, he's unlikely to get much — if any — GOP help.
AP - The flight attendant accused of onboard antics that captured the nation's attention when he told off a passenger and slid down the plane's emergency chute with a beer will undergo a mental health evaluation with the aim of avoiding jail time in a possible plea deal.
Reuters - Hewlett-Packard Co sued former Chief Executive Mark Hurd and asked a court to block him from joining Oracle Corp, saying his hiring by the rival technology firm puts HP's trade secrets "in peril."
Investor's Business Daily - If there was any chance President Obama would move to extend the upper-income Bush tax cuts before the midterm elections, it likely died over the weekend.
AP - The international crossfire over Iran's stoning sentence for a woman convicted of adultery intensified Tuesday with a top European Union official calling it "barbaric" and an Iranian spokesman saying it's about punishing a criminal and not a human rights issue.
OneWorld.net - NEW
YORK, Sep 7 (IRIN) - Activists are pulling out all the stops
ahead of a development summit at UN headquarters on 20-22 September.
Pro-aid and anti-poverty lobbyists are trying everything from giant
letters to banging pans to raise awareness of the high-level event.
Reuters - U.S. religious leaders joined on Tuesday to condemn an "anti-Muslim frenzy" in the United States, and the head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan warned that a Florida church's plan for a Koran-burning could endanger American troops abroad.