AP - House-Senate talks on renewing a payroll tax cut that delivers about $20 a week to the average worker yielded a tentative agreement Tuesday, with lawmakers planning to unveil the pact Wednesday and sending the measure to President Barack Obama as early as this week.
AP - The United States and Europe are considering unprecedented punishment against Iran that could immediately cripple the country's financial lifeline. But it's an extreme option in the banking world that would come with its own costs.
AP - Police in Thailand say the third Iranian suspect involved in a series of blasts in Bangkok has escaped into Malaysia.
AP - Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told Congress Tuesday that the president's new $3.8 trillion spending plan would impose new taxes on only 2 percent of the nation's wealthiest families and the alternative would be to seek more painful cuts in other government programs such as defense, Social Security and Medicare.
AP - Like Whitney Houston's hit "Where Do Broken Hearts Go," her fans are wondering the same.
AP - A Republican supermajority has muscled two of the most restrictive anti-abortion bills in years through the Virginia House, including one that would all but outlaw the procedure in the state by declaring that the rights of persons apply from the moment sperm and egg unite.
AP - A Utah woman was sentenced Tuesday to consecutive prison terms for spiking a 79-year-old man's peach smoothie with antifreeze after taking control of his bank accounts.
AP - Malachy the Pekingese, whose smushed-in face frames a mop of flyaway fur and whose pace rivals a snail's, is the fairest dog in the land.
AP - Even after his amazing week, this one took Linsanity to a whole new level. Against Toronto on Tuesday, it was Lin for the win!
Reuters - President Barack Obama told Chinese leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping on Tuesday that Beijing must play by the same trade rules as other major world powers and vowed to keep pressing China to clean up its human rights record.
Reuters - China will continue to invest in euro zone government debt and it remains confident in the euro, the country's central bank governor said on Wednesday, while calling on Europeans to produce more attractive investment products for China.
Reuters - Talks between Yahoo Inc and China's Alibaba Group over the U.S. Internet giant's Asian assets have hit an impasse, throwing their plans for a $17 billion tax-free asset swap into question, according to sources briefed on the situation.
Reuters - Thai investigators believe they have found a link between this week's bomb blasts in Bangkok and New Delhi, a senior security official said on Wednesday, two of three botched attacks Israel has blamed on Iran.
