AP - Oil giant BP PLC said in an internal report released Wednesday before a key piece of evidence has been analyzed that multiple companies and work teams contributed to the massive Gulf of Mexico spill that fouled waters and shorelines for months.

AP - Oil giant BP PLC says in an internal report that multiple companies and work teams contributed to the massive Gulf of Mexico spill that fouled waters and shorelines for months.

AP - The leader of a small Florida church that espouses anti-Islam philosophy said he was still praying about whether go through with his plan to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11, which the White House, religious leaders and others are pressuring him to call off.

Reuters - U.S. stock index futures were slightly higher on Wednesday, moving into positive territory as they tracked a turnaround in European stocks.

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.

AP - Trying to smooth over recently rocky relations before a visit to Washington, Chinese President Hu Jintao told American officials on Wednesday that he wants to see healthy and stable ties between the two countries.

AFP - Suspected members of an Islamist sect have attacked a prison in northern Nigeria and fought a fierce gun battle with authorities, with one guard saying nearly all inmates escaped.

AP - Shares in BP PLC moved higher on Wednesday ahead of the release of the company's internal report on the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and after a credit ratings agency upgrade.

AP - Despite two terms as governor of New Mexico and recent visits to 26 states, most Americans have never heard of Gary Johnson.

AP - Two suspected U.S. missile strikes hit militant targets in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, officials said, bringing to six the number of such attacks in the region in less than a week. At least 10 suspected members of a group attacking NATO forces in Afghanistan were killed.

AP - About 800 inmates escaped a federal prison holding Muslim extremists in northern Nigeria during a sunset attack by gunmen who are believed to be members of a radical sect, a police official said Wednesday.

AP - Five years ago, Lebanese thronged the streets of Beirut to protest Syrian control over their country in a movement that quickly ended decades of military domination.

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.

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.

Reuters - Foster's Group Ltd , Australia's largest brewer, rejected a private equity offer worth up to $2.5 billion for its wine business as too cheap, sending its shares up as much as 6 percent on hopes of higher bids.

AP - Trying to smooth over recently rocky relations before a visit to Washington, Chinese President Hu Jintao told American officials on Wednesday that he wants to see healthy and stable ties between the two countries.

AP - John Demjanjuk attends most sessions of his trial in a hospital bed set up in the courtroom, wearing dark sunglasses and a hat pulled down over his face.

AP - Will Esposito describes an otherworldly scene after a wildfire tore through a canyon in the Colorado foothills: Some houses in his neighborhood burning while others stood intact, a propane tank shooting flames into the sky, and an eerie quiet interrupted only by firefighting helicopters and airplanes.

Reuters - Australia's fragile Labor government suggested on Wednesday it could adjust a planned profits-based tax on mining companies to bend to demands of the independent MPs giving it a slender grip on power.

AP - Afghan election officials said Wednesday that scores of additional polling stations will have to remain closed during the Sept. 18 parliamentary vote because of the deteriorating security situation in the country.

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 - Investigators found no explosives aboard a Los Angeles-bound Thai Airways flight in which a bomb threat was found scrawled on a bathroom mirror, the FBI said Wednesday.

AP - A house servant of the politically powerful clan accused in last year's massacre of 57 people told a Philippine court Wednesday that the family members plotted the killings of rivals and journalists over dinner six days before the ambush.

AP - Tens of thousands of people have abandoned their homes across southern Mexico to escape flooding from weeks of torrential rains, and forecasts are predicting even more rainfall.

AP - It's power spent, what was left of Tropical Storm Hermine was making its way north Wednesday, having drenched parts of northeastern Mexico and south Texas before weakening.

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.