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 - 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 - 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 - Oil giant BP PLC on Wednesday planned to release the conclusions of its internal investigation into the rig explosion that killed 11 workers and led to the massive Gulf of Mexico spill.

AP - The first full day of Australia's new minority government revealed tensions Wednesday between the deputy prime minister and a kingmaker independent legislator over plans to make mining companies pay more tax.

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.

Reuters - Asian stocks fell on Wednesday, led by shares in Japan's big exporters as a rise in the yen to a new 15-year high threatened to erode their overseas earnings.

AFP - A guard at a prison in northern Nigeria attacked by suspected members of an Islamist sect said Wednesday that nearly all inmates had been freed and an unknown number of people were shot.

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 - 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.

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 - 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 - President Barack Obama is pitching a trio of economic proposals Wednesday in an effort to show the public he's taking action to spur economic growth.

AP - A suspected U.S. drone killed at least six militants in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday when it fired a missile at a house linked to a group that often carries out attacks on NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan, intelligence officials said.

AP - Iraqi police and health officials say at least six people have been killed and 35 wounded in two separate attacks in Baghdad.

AP - Two dead bodies found in the northern state of Tamaulipas appear to be those of a state detective and local police chief who investigated the massacre of 72 migrants in August, prosecutors said.

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.

Reuters - China and the United States said on Wednesday that their sometimes rocky relationship is sounder after talks in Beijing, with both putting an optimistic face on ties that have been jolted by economic and security tensions.

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 - 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 - 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.

AFP - The United States said Tuesday it has requested 50,000 dollars in emergency aid for flood-hit Guatemala and reprogrammed another 4.38 million dollars in economic aid for recovery efforts.

AP - Merriam-Webster's "Word of the Summer" is not even a word. That's something no one can "refudiate."

AP - Government scientists studying the BP disaster are reporting the best possible outcome: Microbes are consuming the oil in the Gulf without depleting the oxygen in the water and creating "dead zones" where fish cannot survive.