AP - The remnants of Tropical Storm Hermine caused widespread flooding in northern Texas and began buffeting southern Oklahoma on Wednesday, killing at least two people and submerging low-lying pockets of Arlington under several feet of water.

AP - Politically weakened but refusing to bend, President Barack Obama insisted Wednesday that Bush-era tax cuts be cut off for the wealthiest Americans, joining battle with Republicans — and some fellow Democrats — just two months before bruising midterm elections.

Reuters - President Barack Obama, fighting to keep Democrats in charge of Congress, said on Wednesday the United States could not afford to extend Bush-era tax cuts for the rich and accused Republicans of being fiscally irresponsible.

AFP - Pakistan's Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi has reached the US Open men's and mixed doubles finals and hopes to win both in tribute to the 21 million flood victims in his homeland.

AP - German Chancellor Angela Merkel praised the bravery of a Danish cartoonist who caricatured the Prophet Muhammad at an award ceremony honoring his achievements for freedom of speech.

AP - Months of political jockeying began in earnest Wednesday as speculation grew about who would try to succeed Mayor Richard M. Daley as leader of the nation's third-largest city, including one-time aide and current White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

AP - The Florida pastor who plans to burn the Quran on the anniversary of 9/11 is rooted in Pentecostal tradition that believes Christians are engaged in a modern-day spiritual battle with evil.

AP - The Twitterverse is full of far more mysterious forces than indecipherable trending topics and Lady Gaga.

AP - The leader of a small Florida church that espouses anti-Islam philosophy said Wednesday he was determined to burn copies of the Quran on Sept. 11, despite pressure from the White House, religious leaders and others to call it off.

AP - BP took some of the blame for the Gulf oil disaster in an internal report issued Wednesday, acknowledging among other things that it misinterpreted a key pressure test of the well. But in a possible preview of its legal strategy, it also pointed the finger at its partners on the doomed rig.

AP - Authorities say flooding from the remnants of Tropical Storm Hermine has killed a second person who was swept away from his pickup truck.

AP - Mexican marines have arrested seven gunmen suspected of participating in the massacre of 72 Central and South American migrants, the government announced Wednesday.

AP - Israelis usher in the Jewish new year, or Rosh Hashana, at sundown Wednesday with a widespread sense of pessimism that a new round of U.S.-sponsored Mideast talks can achieve peace.

AP - The unprecedented turtle rescue effort at NASA's Kennedy Space Center is winding down.

AP - Detroit Mayor Dave Bing defended a stretched fire department Wednesday and its response to what he termed "a natural disaster," after wind-whipped flames destroyed dozens of occupied and abandoned homes across the city.

AP - A Muslim stonemason who spent nearly four decades helping to restore a Roman Catholic cathedral in France has been immortalized as a winged gargoyle peering out from its facade — with the inscription "God is great" written in French and Arabic.

Reuters - The economy has shown "widespread signs" of slowing over recent weeks, the Federal Reserve said on Wednesday in a report suggesting that while the recovery has been faltering, the economy may skirt a second recession.

AFP - US President Barack Obama Wednesday admitted some of his policies were unpopular and had not revived the economy quickly enough, but sought to rekindle his frayed bond with American voters.

AP - Firefighters encountered a tangle of rattlesnakes, downed power lines and combustible propane tanks Wednesday as authorities looked for eight people missing in a wildfire that has destroyed dozens of homes.

AP - President Barack Obama is getting a little personal about the sluggish economy, telling a Cleveland audience about his own family's struggles and hardships.

AP - European Union nations and the continent's biggest human rights organization slammed Iran on Wednesday for its plans to stone a woman convicted of adultery, increasing the global pressure on Tehran over a case it has tried to frame as a criminal matter and not one of human rights.

Time.com - In North Korea, the first congress in 30 years of the Workers' Party of Korea may be imminent, suggesting that a succession is being prepared to hand power from Kim Jong Il to his son Kim Jong Un

Reuters - Fidel Castro said Cuba's economic model no longer works, a U.S.-based journalist reported on Wednesday following interviews with the former president last week.

Reuters - Australia's fragile Labor government suggested on Wednesday it could adjust a planned profits-based tax on mining companies to bend to demands of the independent MPs giving it a slender grip on power.

AP - Demonstrators pelted police for a second night in a poor immigrant neighborhood following the fatal shooting of a Guatemalan day laborer who allegedly threatened people with a knife and then turned the weapon on a responding officer.

AFP - The US economy is showing "widespread" signs of deceleration, the US Federal Reserve warned in its latest Beige Book report published Wednesday.

AP - The Taliban's shadowy leader told Afghans on Wednesday that the insurgents are winning the war and warned Americans that they are wasting lives and billions in tax dollars by continuing in the conflict.