AP - Nearly 6,000 Chinese babies remain hospitalized with kidney problems resulting from milk powder adulterated with the industrial chemical melamine, the Health Ministry said.

AFP - EU leaders were to wrap up a summit Thursday dominated by the financial crisis with a call for an overhaul of the global financial architecture to avert a repeat of the current turmoil.

AP - Heavy rains and winds pummeled St. Croix on Wednesday as the outer edge of powerful Hurricane Omar drenched the island, stranding motorists on flooded roads and forcing workers to shut down a giant oil refinery.

AP - American soldiers killed the alleged No. 2 leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, a Moroccan who trained in Afghanistan, recruited foreign fighters and ran operations in northern Iraq where Sunni insurgents remain a potent threat, the U.S. military said Wednesday.

AP - American troops could face trial before Iraqi courts for major crimes committed off base and when not on missions, under a draft security pact hammered out in months of tortuous negotiations, Iraqi officials familiar with the accord said Wednesday.

AP - The global financial crisis could hardly come at a worse time for nations seeking a new agreement on climate change that — on top of everything else — will cost tens of billions more dollars.

AP - The Group of Eight major industrial nations announced Wednesday they will hold a global summit — perhaps as early as November in New York — to forge common action to prevent another economic meltdown.

AP - Talking to Russians on the street, you'd be forgiven for thinking there was no economic crisis.

AFP - Another Wayne Rooney double fired England to a 3-1 win over Belarus as Fabio Capello's squad made it four wins out of four on the road to South Africa 2010.

AP - It all seemed like the stirrings of a major political challenge to Iran's firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: schoolchildren serenaded the popular reformist leader he replaced and a hometown audience chanted Wednesday: "Our next president."