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.

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 - 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.

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.

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.

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 - Most of the country will see a colder-than-usual winter while summer and spring will be relatively cool and dry, according to the time-honored, complex calculations of the "Old Farmer's Almanac."

AP - The FBI on Wednesday was trying to determine whether a passenger staged a bomb hoax that prompted a search of a Thai Airways jetliner at Los Angeles International Airport.

Reuters - Stubbornly high unemployment and signs of persistent weakness in the housing market have prompted economists to further cut their outlook for U.S. growth in the second half of the year, a Reuters poll showed on Wednesday.