 AP - Imperiled automakers and their union worked feverishly Wednesday to sell a skeptical Congress on a $34 billion aid plan, promising labor concessions and restructuring. The Senate's Democratic leader said there still weren't enough votes to tap the $700 billion federal bailout fund to prop up the foundering Big Three.
 AP - Barack Obama, soon to be the first black U.S. president, is on the road to making good his pledge to have a Cabinet and White House staff that are among most diverse ever, although some supporters are asking him to go even further.
 AP - Gov. Sarah Palin has added to her financial disclosure forms two free trips that she took nearly two years ago but failed to report. Palin, who was Republican presidential candidate John McCain's running mate, made the disclosures last month, but after Election Day when she and McCain lost to Barack Obama and Joe Biden. The trips were first revealed in a story by The Associated Press in October.
 AP - Theological conservatives upset by liberal views of U.S. Episcopalians and Canadian Anglicans formed a rival North American province Wednesday, in a long-developing rift over the Bible that erupted when Episcopalians consecrated the first openly gay bishop.
 AP - Police searching a mound of baggage abandoned amid the carnage of the attack on Mumbai's main train station found two bombs Wednesday — nearly a week after they were left there by gunmen — in a stunning new example of the botched security that has become a major issue in India since the three-day siege.
 AP - After being held captive for nearly a year, an emaciated and shackled 17-year-old boy climbed out a window in the home of his captors and walked into a nearby gym in search of help, police said.
 AP - More than 400 years after Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe challenged established wisdom about the heavens by analyzing a strange new light in the sky, scientists say they've finally nailed down just what he saw.
 AP - A publicist for Mark Ruffalo says the actor's brother is fighting for his life after being shot in Beverly Hills.
AP - The one that didn't get away held an unlikely surprise for a Texas man. The blue-stoned class ring of Joe Richardson, engraved with his name, turned up inside an 8-pound bass 21 years after he lost it while fishing on Lake Sam Rayburn.
 AP - Dustin Pedroia has a Rookie of the Year award, an MVP, a Gold Glove and Silver Slugger and, of course, a World Series ring. And now he's got the big-bucks contract befitting one of the most decorated young players in baseball. The Red Sox second baseman, who earned $457,000 last season while winning the AL Most Valuable Player award, agreed Wednesday to a $40.5 million, six-year contract that could keep in Boston through at least 2014.
 Reuters - President-elect Barack Obama said on Wednesday struggling automakers have put forward a "more serious" restructuring proposal to Congress but withheld judgment on the plans until hearings are held.
 Reuters - Record declines in the vast U.S. and European service sectors and more grim U.S. employment news on Wednesday sparked fear of an economic "free fall," setting up another round of aggressive interest rate cuts.
 Reuters - U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressed Pakistan to cooperate fully in the probe into the Mumbai attacks but she also warned India against any action that could stoke regional conflict.
 Reuters - The chief executives of the major U.S. auto companies prepared on Wednesday for make-or-break congressional hearings on their request for $34 billion in government bailout loans, while lawmakers considered options including one or more of the Detroit Three going bankrupt.
 Reuters - Senate Democrats will be able to do plenty over the next two years -- despite falling just short of their goal of winning a majority big enough to end Republican procedural roadblocks.
 Reuters - Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is weighing whether to ask Congress for the remaining $350 billion of the financial bailout fund, with White House aides approaching President-elect Barack Obama's transition team about the idea, an Obama aide said on Wednesday.
Reuters - Imprisoned former WorldCom Inc chief Bernard Ebbers has joined the list of high-profile corporate defendants petitioning for clemency in the final days of President George W. Bush's term in office.
 Reuters - A string of departures by the U.S. military's allies in Iraq is turning into an exodus as violence subsides and the end of a U.N. mandate permitting their deployment to the country approaches.
 AFP - India on Wednesday warned that all options were open in dealing with Pakistan after last week's attacks on Mumbai, as the United States pressured Islamabad to show urgent cooperation with the probe.
 AFP - Some 100 nations put their names Wednesday to a landmark treaty banning cluster bombs, amid calls for major arms producers such as China, Russia and the United States to join them.
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