Reuters - Sly hints and outright guesses fostered speculation in the U.S. vice presidential sweepstakes on Tuesday as Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain neared their choices of a No. 2.

AP - Umpires want baseball to take another look at instant replay. Umps said their governing board voted Tuesday to boycott a conference call with management intended to discuss implementing replay and are angry that their concerns aren't being addressed.

AP - LeRoi Moore, the versatile saxophonist whose signature staccato fused jazz and funk overtones onto the eclectic sound of the Dave Matthews Band, died Tuesday of complications from injuries he suffered in an all-terrain vehicle accident, the band said. He was 46.

AP - Paddlings, swats, licks. A quarter of a million schoolchildren got them last year — and blacks, American Indians and kids with disabilities got a disproportionate share of the punishment, according to a study by a human rights group.

AP - Barack Obama and his newly named running mate will campaign together Saturday at the place where the Democratic presidential hopeful formally launched his White House bid.

AP - Lolo Jones was supposed to take the Olympic 100-meter hurdles title. Other entrants knew it. Jones knew it. Even told herself so right before the start, mouthing, "I can win this race," when she was introduced to the crowd.

AP - Russia took the first steps toward a troop pullback from Georgia on Tuesday but at the same time paraded blindfolded and bound Georgian prisoners on armored vehicles and seized four U.S. Humvees.

AP - French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited a military chapel in Kabul on Wednesday where the bodies of 10 French soldiers killed in battle lay before they were to be flown home.

AP - President Bush is defending his line-in-the-sand approach to the fight against Islamic terrorism, following presidential rivals John McCain and Barack Obama in a speech to a major veterans group.

AP - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice plans Wednesday to sign a deal to build a U.S. missile defense base on Polish soil, an agreement that has already prompted an infuriated Russia to threaten its former Soviet satellite.

AP - Tropical Storm Fay continued its erratic path Wednesday reaching the coast and headed for the Atlantic Ocean, where it could strengthen and curve back toward Florida — possibly as a hurricane.

AFP - Pakistan's ruling coalition met Tuesday to discuss a replacement for President Pervez Musharraf, as the deaths of 41 people in Islamist violence underscored the challenges facing the government.

AFP - Ten French NATO soldiers were killed in a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan, officials said Tuesday, the deadliest ground attack on foreign troops here since the US-led war was launched in 2001.

Reuters - A day after President Pervez Musharraf quit, leaders of Pakistan's fractious coalition government squabbled over the judiciary on Tuesday and a bomb killed 25 people, underscoring the challenges facing the nation.

Reuters - Iran's attempt to launch a dummy satellite into orbit was a "dramatic failure" that fell far short of the country's assertions of success, a U.S. official said on Tuesday