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  • Teenage girl dies after inhaling helium at party (AP)
    AP - Last weekend, 14-year-old Ashley Long told her parents she was going to a slumber party. But instead of spending the night watching videos and eating popcorn two blocks away, she piled into a car with a bunch of her friends and rode to a condo in Medford, Ore., where police say the big sister of one of her friends was throwing a party with booze and marijuana.

  • Cowell: 'X Factor' wants 2 female judges, 2 hosts (AP)
    AP - Simon Cowell is playing it coy about rumors that Fergie, Britney Spears and Janet Jackson are being considered for "The X Factor."

  • Police: Girl forced to run 3 hours dies; 2 charged (AP)
    AP - At a doublewide trailer along a dirt road in rural Alabama, authorities say 9-year-old Savannah Hardin was forced to run for three hours as punishment for having lied to her grandmother about eating candy bars. The severely dehydrated girl had a seizure and died days later, her death ruled a homicide.

  • Man's childhood comic collection fetches $3.5M (AP)

    This Feb. 13, 2012 handout photo provided by Heritage Auction , shows the CGC-Certified 6.5 copy of Detective Comics #27 from the Billy Wright Collection at Heritage Auctions in Dallas,Texas. On Wednesday, the collection is expected to bring more than $2 million when Heritage Auctions offers the comics at auction in New York City. (AP Photo/Courtesy of Heritage Auctions)AP - Billy Wright plunked down dime after dime for comic books while growing up in the late 1930s and early 1940s, caring for the collection he started around the age of 9 until his death more than half a century later. On Wednesday, most of that collection sold for a whopping $3.5 million.




  • Obama urges corporate tax cut, closing loopholes (Reuters)

    U.S. President Barack Obama is pictured during a Democratic Party fundraiser in Bellevue, February 17, 2012. REUTERS/Jason ReedReuters - President Barack Obama made an opening offer in what could be a long negotiation with corporate America on Wednesday, putting forward his first detailed plan to cut the corporate tax rate.




  • Police say love triangle led to CA murder-suicide (AP)
    AP - A 73-year-old gunman entangled in a love triangle shot and killed the treasurer of a remote-controlled airplane club who police said was having an affair with the estranged wife of the attacker.

  • Romney and Santorum seek edge in 20th debate (AP)

    Arizona State University journalism students stand in for the Republican presidential candidates on stage at the Mesa Arts Center, Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2012, in advance of Wednesday night's debate, in Mesa, Ariz. (AP Photo/The Arizona Republic, Tom Tingle) MARICOPA COUNTY OUT; MAGS OUT;AP - Struggling for an edge, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum campaigned Wednesday into the 20th and possibly final debate of the roller-coaster race for the Republican presidential nomination.




  • Poll: Obama benefitting from improving economy (AP)
    AP - President Barack Obama is reaping political benefits from the country's brighter economic mood. A new poll shows that Republicans and Democrats alike are increasingly saying the nation is heading in the right direction and most independents now approve the way he's addressing the nation's post-recession period.

  • U.S. advisers back experimental obesity pill (Reuters)
    Reuters - Experimental obesity drug Qnexa won the backing of U.S. health advisors on Wednesday, raising hopes for approval of the first prescription weight-loss pill in 13 years.

  • 2nd degree murder verdict in lacrosse death trial (AP)
    AP - Jurors found a former University of Virginia lacrosse player guilty of second-degree murder Wednesday in the slaying of his ex-girlfriend that was fueled by jealousy over her relationship with another lacrosse player.

  • Shelling kills 2 Western journalists in Syria (AP)
    AP - Syrian gunners pounded an opposition stronghold where the last dispatches from a veteran American-born war correspondent chronicled the suffering of civilians caught in the relentless shelling. An intense morning barrage killed her and a French photojournalist — two of 74 deaths reported Wednesday in Syria.

  • Newark mayor: NYPD Muslim files 'deeply offensive' (AP)

    Imam Abdul A. Muhammad of the Masjid Imam K. Ali Muslim mosque in Newark, N.J., speaks in his clothing and accessories store, regarding surveillance of the Muslim community by the New York Police Department, Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012. Americans in New Jersey’s largest city were subjected to surveillance as part of the New York Police Department’s effort to build databases of where Muslims work, shop and pray. The operation in Newark was so secretive, even the city’s mayor says he was kept in the dark. For months in mid-2007, plainclothes NYPD officers snapped pictures of mosques and eavesdropped in Muslim neighborhoods. The result was a 60-page report, obtained by The Associated Press. It cited no evidence of crimes. It was just a guide to Newark’s Muslims. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)AP - The mayor and police director of New Jersey's largest city said Wednesday the New York Police Department misled their city and never told them it was conducting a widespread spying operation on Newark's Muslim neighborhoods. Had they known, they said, they never would have allowed it.




  • Congress members threatened with biological attack (Reuters)
    Reuters - Several members of the Congress received mail threatening a biological attack and containing a suspicious powder later found to be harmless as law enforcement officials warned on Wednesday that more letters could be on their way.

  • Judge strikes down law mandating sale of contraception (Reuters)
    Reuters - A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that Washington state cannot require pharmacists to dispense emergency contraceptives if to do so violates their religious beliefs.

  • Home resales at 1-1/2 year-high, supply falls (Reuters)

    A labourer selects wooden planks as he works at a residential construction site in Hefei, Anhui province February 18, 2012. China's home prices fell in January from December, marking the fourth monthly fall in a row and showing that the policy-driven property market downturn is deepening, which will add to worries about a hard landing in the world's second-largest economy. REUTERS/Stringer (CHINA - Tags: BUSINESS REAL ESTATE CONSTRUCTION EMPLOYMENT)Reuters - Home resales rose to a 1-1/2-year high in January, pushing the supply of properties on the market to the lowest level in almost seven years in a hopeful sign for the housing sector.




  • Iran defiant as U.N. nuclear talks fail (Reuters)

    Herman Nackaerts (L), head of a delegation of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), checks in for a flight to Iran next to other IAEA delegates at the international airport in Vienna February 19, 2012. REUTERS/Herwig PrammerReuters - The U.N. nuclear watchdog ended its latest mission to Iran after talks on Tehran's suspected secret atomic weapons research failed, a setback likely to increase the risk of confrontation with the West.




  • Fitch downgrades Greece on debt swap plan (Reuters)
    Reuters - Fitch cut Greece's long-term ratings on Wednesday to its lowest rating above a default, becoming the first ratings agency to make the widely expected downgrade after the country announced a bond exchange plan to ease its massive debt burden.

  • Could Rick Santorum super PAC do more harm than good? (The Christian Science Monitor)
    The Christian Science Monitor - One point being made repeatedly in the media of late is that super PACs are changing the usual dynamics of the presidential nominating process by allowing underdog Republican candidates to remain in the race.

  • Stolen Valor Act at Supreme Court: Is lying about being a hero a right? (The Christian Science Monitor)
    The Christian Science Monitor - When Xavier Alvarez stood up and introduced himself at a local water district meeting in July 2007, he had no idea he was about to commit a federal crime.

  • U.S., French journalists killed in Syria (Reuters)

    Journalist Marie Colvin poses for a photograph with Libyan rebels (unseen) in Misrata in this June 4, 2011 file photograph. Two Western journalists were killed in the besieged Syrian city of Homs on February 22, 2012 when shells hit the house they were staying in, opposition activists and witnesses said. They were named as Marie Colvin, an American working for Britain's Sunday Times, and French photographer Remi Ochlik. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra (LIBYA - Tags: POLITICS CONFLICT MILITARY)Reuters - American correspondent Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed in the besieged Syrian city of Homs on Wednesday when rockets fired by government forces hit the house they were staying in, opposition activists and witnesses said.