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.

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 - 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.

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 - 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 - 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.