AP - Even today, two years after Mark Foley's very public fall from grace, the former congressman can't explain why he sent lurid, sexually explicit computer messages to male teens who had worked as Capitol Hill pages.

AP - While there's anger and recriminations in California's gay-rights movement after voters there banned same-sex marriage, gay couples in Connecticut are at the opposite extreme: They're getting ready to pick up marriage license forms.

AP - Connections engineered more than a century ago between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed should be changed to block the advance of invasive species that can cause irreversible damage, an environmental advocacy group says.

AP - Syria's foreign minister suggested Wednesday that Israeli bombs may be the source of uranium traces that diplomats at the U.N. nuclear agency said were found at a suspected nuclear site.

AP - Authorities say a Fort Lauderdale, Fla. student is dead after some type of incident at a high school.

AP - There are no voters left to persuade. But as Minnesota's U.S. Senate race heads toward a statewide recount, the bare-knuckle fight between Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken feels like Election Day had never come and gone.

AP - Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday that Russia should not feel threatened when Eastern European countries strengthen their ties to the West.

AP - North Korea's powerful military announced Wednesday it will shut the country's border with the South on Dec. 1 — a marked escalation of threats against Seoul's new conservative government at a time of heightened tension on the peninsula.

AP - A former Border Patrol agent convicted of shooting a fleeing drug smuggler was resentenced Wednesday to his original 12-year prison term.

AP - In this brutal season of cutbacks, the office holiday party is getting downsized, too.

AP - The FBI is looking into alleged misconduct by a preneed funeral company that had guaranteed hundreds of millions of dollars of services to families before becoming insolvent.

AP - The agency that owns ground zero and developer Larry Silverstein went to an arbitrator Wednesday to resolve a multimillion-dollar dispute over a land turnover that has stalled rebuilding.

AP - A federal judge on Wednesday ordered a new competency evaluation for the man charged in the months-long abduction of Elizabeth Smart.

AP - The mother of 7-year-old Nixzmary Brown was sentenced to at least 40 years in prison Wednesday for doing nothing as her battered and malnourished daughter lay dying.

AP - Next spring, when a city's fancy turns to baseball, the Los Angeles Dodgers will take the field in a neighborhood newly christened Dodgertown. But Rachel Cantu and others who once lived there won't be celebrating.

AP - A 15-year-old student died after a shooting at a Fort Lauderdale high school Wednesday, and police were questioning another student believed to be responsible.

AP - The controversial diabetes pill Avandia failed to significantly slow plaque buildup in heart arteries compared with an older drug, though there were some hopeful signs in a new study reported Wednesday.

AP - Hattie Dillon got a first-hand taste of the racial hatred that gripped this city in the 1960s when a metal bolt flung by someone in an angry crowd gashed her head as she marched for civil rights.

AP - Not to put a damper on the Obama family's canine quest, but allergists have a news flash: There's no such thing as a hypoallergenic dog.

AP - The American Civil Liberties Union is taking up the case of a southwestern Michigan minister who was sent to prison for warning that a judge could be tortured by God.

AP - A federal judge on Wednesday turned down a request for a new trial from convicted influence peddler Tony Rezko, the pivotal figure in a major Illinois political corruption scandal.

AP - The FBI is looking into alleged misconduct by a funeral contract company that had guaranteed hundreds of millions of dollars of services to families before becoming insolvent.

AP - Connections engineered more than a century ago between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River watershed should be changed to block the advance of invasive species that can cause irreversible damage, an environmental advocacy group says.

AP - Air Force officials said Wednesday that a recent nuclear inspection found deficiencies in a unit responsible for 150 ICBMs in Montana, but added that there was no threat to public safety.

AP - The Metra commuter rail agency will pay $11 million to settle two wrongful death lawsuits stemming from a 2005 derailment, under a settlement approved by a judge Wednesday.

AP - President-elect Barack Obama's family has discussed public school options for their two young daughters with District of Columbia officials, the mayor and schools chief said Wednesday.

AP - A grand jury on Wednesday indicted another three members of a polygamist sect that was the focus of a massive raid in west Texas during the spring.

AP - The FBI is looking into alleged misconduct by a funeral contract company that guaranteed hundreds of millions of dollars of services to families before becoming insolvent.

AP - The University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, which was damaged by Hurricane Ike, said Wednesday about 3,800 workers would be laid off because the teaching hospital is running out of money.

AP - An Illinois judge has dismissed a traffic ticket issued to a black Democratic congressman who accused police of racial profiling.

AP - Michael Jackson has given up title to his Neverland ranch, transferring the deed to a company he partly controls.

AP - An 11-year-old Florida boy was abandoned at a Nebraska hospital Wednesday, just days before lawmakers meet to change the much-criticized 'safe haven' law.

AP - A man who went on a murderous rampage against the family of his ex-girlfriend was executed Wednesday after he apologized and asked his family to pray for him.

AP - Gov. Ed Rendell says Pennsylvania's lieutenant governor has died. She was 78 and had been undergoing treatment for cancer.

AP - Defying the terms of his plea agreement, an Iraq war veteran will not testify against a fellow soldier charged with murdering another veteran after a drunken dispute, his lawyers said Wednesday.