AP - Primed for a fight, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum traded fiery accusations about health care, spending earmarks and federal bailouts Wednesday night in the 20th and possibly final debate of the roller-coaster race for the Republican presidential nomination.

AP - President Barack Obama is reaping political benefits from the country's brighter economic mood. A new poll shows that Republicans and Democrats alike are increasingly saying the nation is heading in the right direction and most independents now approve the way he's addressing the nation's post-recession period.

AP - Syrian gunners pounded an opposition stronghold where the last dispatches from a veteran American-born war correspondent chronicled the suffering of civilians caught in the relentless shelling. An intense morning barrage killed her and a French photojournalist — two of 74 deaths reported Wednesday in Syria.

AP - The Obama administration is calling for stronger privacy protections for consumers as mobile gadgets, Internet services and other tools are able to do a better job of tracking what you do and where you go.

AP - The mayor and police director of New Jersey's largest city said Wednesday the New York Police Department misled their city and never told them it was conducting a widespread spying operation on Newark's Muslim neighborhoods. Had they known, they said, they never would have allowed it.

AP - A jury convicted a former University of Virginia lacrosse player Wednesday of second-degree murder of his ex-girlfriend in a drunken, jealous rage, rejecting a first-degree murder verdict and a possible life sentence.

AP - Twenty Republican presidential debates later, the head-scratching claims kept coming.

AP - At a doublewide trailer along a dirt road in rural Alabama, authorities say 9-year-old Savannah Hardin was forced to run for three hours as punishment for having lied to her grandmother about eating candy bars. The severely dehydrated girl had a seizure and her death days later was ruled a homicide.

AP - Simon Cowell is playing it coy about rumors that Fergie, Britney Spears and Janet Jackson are being considered for "The X Factor."

AP - Billy Wright plunked down dime after dime for comic books while growing up in the late 1930s and early 1940s, caring for the collection he started around the age of 9 until his death more than half a century later. On Wednesday, most of that collection sold for a whopping $3.5 million.

Reuters - Rivals piled criticism on U.S. presidential candidate Rick Santorum at a testy debate on Wednesday, attempting to blunt his surprise surge at a pivotal period in the Republican race.

Reuters - President Barack Obama made an opening offer in what could be a long negotiation with corporate America on Wednesday, putting forward his first detailed plan to cut the corporate tax rate.

Reuters - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces rained rockets and bombs down on opposition-held neighborhoods of the city of Homs, reducing buildings to rubble and killing more than 80 people, including two Western journalists.

Reuters - Fitch cut Greece's long-term ratings on Wednesday to its lowest rating above a default, becoming the first ratings agency to make the widely expected downgrade after the country announced a bond exchange plan to ease its massive debt burden.

Reuters - Could history repeat itself? That is a question uppermost in the minds of many Americans as they warily watch gasoline prices at the pump rise week after week.

Reuters - Several members of the Congress received mail threatening a biological attack and containing a suspicious powder later found to be harmless as law enforcement officials warned on Wednesday that more letters could be on their way.

Reuters - A federal judge declared on Wednesday that a Washington state rule requiring pharmacists to dispense emergency contraceptives against their religious beliefs is unconstitutional.

Reuters - Home resales rose to a 1-1/2-year high in January, pushing the supply of properties on the market to the lowest level in almost seven years in a hopeful sign for the housing sector.

The Christian Science Monitor - One point being made repeatedly in the media of late is that super PACs are changing the usual dynamics of the presidential nominating process by allowing underdog Republican candidates to remain in the race.

The Christian Science Monitor - When Xavier Alvarez stood up and introduced himself at a local water district meeting in July 2007, he had no idea he was about to commit a federal crime.