AP - Seeking to give anxious Democrats a boost ahead of the November elections, President Barack Obama is pitching a trio of economic initiatives Wednesday and voicing unwavering opposition to Bush-era tax breaks for the wealthy.

AP - Oil giant BP PLC laid much of the blame for the rig explosion and the massive Gulf of Mexico spill on workers at sea, other companies and a complex series of failures in an internal report released Wednesday before a key piece of evidence has been analyzed.

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 - House Republican Leader John Boehner onWednesday proposed a two-year freeze on all tax rates and a cut in government spending to the levels of 2008, before a deep recession took hold of the economy.

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 - The peanut industry executive whose filthy processing plants were blamed in a salmonella outbreak two years ago that killed nine people and sickened hundreds more is back in the business.

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 - U.S. special operations forces are expanding their training of the Yemeni military as the Obama administration broadens its program to counter terrorism in countries reluctant to harbor a visible American military presence.

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 - Nobody can say Kim Clijsters took an easy path to her U.S. Open title last year. She played both Williams sisters.

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 - U.S. religious leaders on Tuesday condemned an "anti-Muslim frenzy" in the United States, including plans by a Florida church to burn a Koran on September 11, an act a top general said could endanger American troops abroad.

Reuters - The United States does not plan to contribute to a NATO request for 2,000 troops for the Afghan war, the Pentagon said on Tuesday, even as the head of the alliance held out the possibility of U.S. participation.