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 - 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 - 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 - 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 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.

AP - Even if they were enacted soon, President Barack Obama's proposed tax breaks for businesses would hardly be a quick fix to rejuvenate hiring or the economy, analysts say.

AP - Their control of the House in peril, Democrats are playing defense all across the country. Disgruntled voters, a sluggish economy and vanishing enthusiasm for President Barack Obama have put 75 seats or more - the vast majority held by Democrats - at risk of changing hands.

AP - President Barack Obama's proposed tax breaks for business sound like ideas that have enjoyed broad Republican backing in the past. But in today's toxic political atmosphere, he's unlikely to get much — if any — GOP help.

AP - A 36-year-old factory worker who spent much of his adult life in prison was charged Tuesday with sexually assaulting and murdering a 14-year-old girl whose badly burned body was found behind gravel piles at the asphalt plant where he worked.