NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Wal-Mart Stores Inc. worker fired last month for intercepting a reporter's phone calls says he was part of a larger, sophisticated surveillance operation that included snooping not only on employees, but also on critics, stockholders and the consulting firm McKinsey & Co., The Wall Street Journal reported.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. apartment market remained strong in the first quarter, and most areas did not yet show an impact from the recent mortgage crisis as rents rose and the vacancy rate was little changed, according to a real estate research report.

AP - A mother found the bodies of her two young children and their father in a wooded area Tuesday after the man called her threatening to harm them, police said.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. government has sued the operators of more than 125 Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc. tax preparation offices, accusing them of cheating the U.S. Treasury out of more than $70 million through a 'pervasive and massive series of tax-fraud schemes.'

AP - Twelve-year-old Adrian Ramirez huddled with his two sisters on a bench and tried to find the words to describe his feelings about their mother's pending deportation to Mexico.

AP - Video blogger Joshua Wolf, who spent a record-setting stint behind bars for refusing to turn over his footage of a chaotic 2005 street protest, walked out of prison after cutting a deal with prosecutors.

AP - Twelve-year-old Adrian Ramirez huddled with his two sisters on a bench and tried to find the words to describe his feelings about their mother's pending deportation to Mexico.

AP - SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Stung by a Supreme Court ruling that it has the authority to establish vehicle emissions standards, the Environmental Protection Agency is allowing California to proceed with efforts to set the nation's first standards to cut tailpipe emissions from cars, light trucks and sport utility vehicles.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co. is in talks with New York state and local officials to build a 50-story office building in lower Manhattan near the site of the World Trade Center towers destroyed on September 11, 2001, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

NEGRIL, Jamaica (Reuters) - The first time Gerri Carr got married, she took a traditional route -- big Catholic church, packed pews, and a near panic attack before she walked down the aisle.

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters Life!) - A 700-pound (318 kg) woman was rescued from her bathroom by firefighters who cut away part of an exterior wall and removed a window before lowering her to the ground, a fire official said on Tuesday.

AP - Two bald eagles have hatched in the wild on Santa Catalina Island for the first time since chemical contamination there wiped out the majestic birds decades ago, conservation officials said.

AP - Three Yale University students, one a U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, were arrested on charges of setting fire to an American flag hanging outside a home.

AP - Gunfire inside the CNN Center sent a lunchtime crowd scurrying for cover as a hotel employee was shot dead in a domestic dispute and her former boyfriend was wounded by security.

AP - Some dog and cat owners frightened by a contamination scare are forsaking the pet-food aisle and grinding up meat in their own kitchens instead.

AP - A mother found the bodies of her two young children and their father in a wooded area after the man called her threatening to harm them, police said.

AP - It took a Coast Guard helicopter to rescue a man and his pet cockatoo from the heights of a pine tree after he got stuck trying retrieve the $2,000 bird.

AP - A video blogger, who spent a record 226 days behind bars for refusing to turn over his footage of a chaotic 2005 street protest, walked out of prison after cutting a deal with prosecutors.

AP - The trial of an alleged 'sleeper agent' for Saddam Hussein's intelligence service began Tuesday with a federal prosecutor accusing him of spying on Iraqi dissidents in the United States.

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (Reuters) - Going into space is a once-in-a-lifetime experience and for U.S. space tourist Charles Simonyi it's also a 'back to the future' adventure.

AP - Wal-Mart defended its security measures after a fired employee went public Wednesday with allegations of extensive corporate surveillance of the retailer's critics, consultants and shareholders.

AP - This year's hurricane season will likely be more active than normal, the director of the National Hurricane Center director warned on Wednesday, one day after a leading researcher forecast a 'very active' season.

AP - For the third time this year, surveillance videotape has surfaced of an off-duty Chicago police officer involved in a bar fight, authorities said.

AP - The auto industry hopes a recent Supreme Court ruling will help it block California's plans to set the nation's first standards to cut tailpipe emissions from cars, light trucks and sport utility vehicles.

AP - Violent thunderstorms battered a three-state region with hail as big as softballs and wind that damaged several homes and caused power outages.

AP - The widow of a sailor swept from the deck of his submarine off the coast of England greeted her husband's crew members with gold commemorative coins to mark their bittersweet homecoming.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - PepsiCo Inc. is challenging creative types to design a new look for its cans, which the company hopes will attract more young customers.

HOUSTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Coast Guard plucked a man and his pet bird from a 75-foot (23-meter) tree on Tuesday evening after he became stranded while trying to coax the creature out of the branches.

AP - Relatives of a former FBI agent who has been missing in Iran for three weeks said Wednesday they are worried and doing 'everything possible' to find him. U.S. officials, meanwhile, downplayed the disappearance as routine.

AP - An intern with the National Archives pleaded guilty Wednesday to stealing 164 Civil War documents, including an official announcement of President Lincoln's death, and selling most of them on eBay.

AP - White House adviser Karl Rove was confronted by more than a dozen protesters who blocked his car and threw things as he tried to leave a speaking engagement at American University, officials said.

AP - A former Navy sailor pleaded not guilty Wednesday to federal charges alleging he supported terrorism by disclosing secret information about the locations of Navy ships and ways to attack them.

AP - A 21-year-old woman accused of slipping into a hospital maternity ward in hospital scrubs and abducting a newborn pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a kidnapping charge.

BOSTON (Reuters) - Three Yale University students, including a Briton and a Greek national, have been charged in a case involving the burning of a U.S. flag outside a Connecticut house, a court official said on Wednesday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - As more Americans struggle to make payments on their homes, Wells Fargo & Co. is joining other lenders in introducing a credit card to help people pay down their mortgages faster.

AP - It's the casino equivalent of reaching under your couch cushions and finding a buck or so in loose change.

AP - A group of boys playing with mercury swiped from a dental office created an environmental headache for one small town after tracking it into their school, homes and church and up the steps of the public library.

AP - America loves a good mug shot. The more frizzed, frazzled and frantic, the better.

AP - A celebrity fashion designer accused of sexually assaulting as many as a dozen women and girls pleaded not guilty Wednesday, hours after prosecutors filed 12 new charges.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Federal immigration agents arrested 62 sanitation workers during a Wednesday morning raid at Cargill Inc.'s pork plant in Beardstown, Illinois, some on identity theft charges and others for being illegal immigrants, immigration officials said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Skilled foreign workers, who often seek employment in the high tech industry, can no longer apply for a visa to work in the United States after the government reached its quota for applications in just one day, authorities said on Wednesday.

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - For allergy sufferers, the arrival of spring is always unpleasant, but if you live in Tulsa, Oklahoma, this could be a particularly miserable season.

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) - Black social clubs said an agreement on Wednesday with New Orleans Police on security fees could save the distinctive musical parades that symbolize the city's Jazz culture.

BOSTON (Reuters) - While she won't face hills or jostling competitors, a U.S. astronaut who plans to run the Boston Marathon in space said on Wednesday she'll face challenges unlike those confronting her earthbound rivals.

AP - Billionaire Richard Branson looks at a bleak and featureless expanse of the New Mexico desert and sees the perfect spot on which to build the future — a $198 million launch complex that would blast paying tourists into space.

AP - Banking executive Keith Gores was so devoted to his work that he always arrived ahead of time for meetings.

AP - Three Yale University students, including one who translated for U.S. troops in Afghanistan and testified at a former CIA contractor's trial, have been charged in the burning of an American flag on a porch.

AP - One of the two newly identified Sept. 11 victims was a firefighter whose remains were recovered from the World Trade Center site in 2001, the fire department said.

AP - Police say an unemployed suburban mother of five found a quick way to make ends meet: turning her children into panhandlers.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Grambling State coach Eddie Robinson, who sent hundreds of players to the National Football League, has died, officials said on Wednesday.

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A volunteer for the U.S. National Archives has admitted stealing more than 150 American Civil War documents worth about $30,000 and peddling them on the Internet, prosecutors said on Wednesday.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A celebrity fashion designer accused of luring young women and girls with promises of modeling work and then raping or sexually assaulting them was charged on Wednesday with attacks on four more victims.

SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Technology companies may face a shortage of skilled workers later this year after U.S. immigration services reached its annual quota for visa applications in one day.

AP - The former head of a national organization of black Baptist churches spent four years in prison for stealing millions of dollars from the group. Now he wants one of his old jobs back: leader of the organization's Florida chapter.

AP - The director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency returned Wednesday to the scene of the agency's much-ridiculed performance after Hurricane Katrina and promised that it has transformed into a premier disaster response engine.

AP - No charges will be filed in a bar fight between an off-duty Chicago police officer and another officer from Washington, D.C., the third such videotaped case to surface in recent weeks, prosecutors said Wednesday.

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Bob Clark, best known as the director of the seasonal favorite 'A Christmas Story,' was killed along with his son Ariel early Wednesday, when their car was struck by a vehicle whose driver was suspected of being intoxicated.

CHICAGO/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two potential bidders for the Chicago Cubs said they only want the professional baseball team if the deal includes the landmark Wrigley Field, with one bidder saying he was willing to pay what would be a record price.

AP - With hurricane season less than two months away and memories of Katrina less than two years old, city leaders are still trying to sort out how they will evacuate residents this year if another storm approaches.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sanjaya Malakar, the talk of 'American Idol' fan sites and blogs, advanced on Wednesday to another round, as a bout with the flu forced crooner Tony Bennett to cancel a live performance on the hit show.

AP - A Russian researcher, delving anew into once-secret Soviet files from the Cold War, says she has found no evidence that Alger Hiss spied or that Soviet intelligence had any particular interest in him.

AP - Requiring doctors to show women seeking an abortion an ultrasound image of their fetus could be declared unconstitutional if it is interpreted as forcing an unwilling patient, the state attorney general told legislators Wednesday in a letter.

AP - The 'boyfriend' of a 14-year-old girl who lived with her and her family for more than a year was actually a 30-year-old woman, police said.

AP - More than 200 demonstrators held a quiet rally Wednesday at Brigham Young University to protest Vice President Dick Cheney's upcoming commencement speech, while his supporters staged a counter-protest.

AP - A man who severely burned his 6-year-old son in a custody dispute more than two decades ago was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison on a weapons charge Wednesday under California's 'three strikes' law.

AP - Two men accused of stealing four Yorkshire terriers at gunpoint during a home robbery last month pleaded not guilty Wednesday.

AP - A Boston terrier named Mickey that disappeared four years ago from his suburban Kansas City backyard was found in Montana and reunited with his owners this week.

AP - Comair admitted to federal investigators that its pilots were partly responsible for an airplane crash that killed 49 people, but also says better systems for alerting airlines to taxiway changes might have prevented it.