AP - A 911 call recording reveals a social worker's attempts over more than six minutes call to get a dispatcher to send authorities quickly to the home of Josh Powell after he locked himself and his two sons in the home he then set ablaze.

AP - The No. 2 U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Wednesday that U.S. military advisory teams will start deploying to Afghanistan this year to help Afghan combat forces as they take a more prominent role in fighting the Taliban.

AP - A new passenger screening program to make check-in more convenient for certain travelers is being expanded to 28 more major U.S. airports, the government said Wednesday. There will be no cost to eligible passengers, who would no longer have to remove their shoes and belts before they board flights.

AP - Officials at an elementary school rocked by teacher sex abuse claims are investigating yet another allegation of misconduct, this one involving a teacher's aide accused of sending love letters to an 11-year-old boy.

AP - A central Missouri teenager who confessed to strangling, cutting and stabbing a 9-year-old girl because she wanted to know how it felt to kill someone was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

AP - Move over, coffee and Red Bull. A Harvard professor thinks the next big thing will be people inhaling their caffeine from a lipstick-sized tube. Critics say the novel product is not without its risks.

Reuters - Applications for home mortgages jumped last week, fueled by increased demand for refinancing as interest rates fell, an industry group said on Wednesday.

Reuters - An appeals court on Tuesday found California's gay marriage ban unconstitutional in a case that may lead to a showdown in the Supreme Court.

AP - China's government promised Wednesday to raise minimum wages by 13 percent a year through 2015 and to launch measures to generate 45 million new jobs.

AP - Conservative critics like to point out that the federal appeals court that just declared California's same-sex marriage ban to be unconstitutional has its decisions overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court more often than other judicial circuits, a record that could prove predictive if the high court agrees to review the gay marriage case on appeal.

AP - Shot through the upper back on a rooftop in Afghanistan and gasping for breath after a bullet ripped through his chest, Marine Sgt. Ben Tomlinson had a fear worse than death.

AP - It was just last summer that the Dow Jones industrial average shed 2,000 points in three terrifying weeks. Investors had a host of things to worry about, including the possibility of another recession.

AP - The police commissioner's TV host son has been cleared of the prospect of criminal charges of raping a woman he met for a drink, but it's not clear how quickly he might return to his spot as a jocular morning-show host.

AP - German exports climbed 11.4 percent last year to top the euro1 trillion ($1.3 trillion) mark for the first time, official figures showed Wednesday, though a decline in December underlined the likelihood of slower growth ahead.

AP - Police released 911 calls that revealed a social worker's frantic attempts to alert authorities that Josh Powell had locked himself in his home with his two young sons, moments before he set off a huge fire that killed all inside.

AP - First in and last out — that's the current plan for elite U.S. forces in Afghanistan, according to Adm. Bill McRaven.

AP - When it started, American teenagers were doing "The Twist." The United States had yet to put a man into orbit around the Earth. And a first-class U.S. postage stamp cost 4 cents.