AP - The U.S. pressed fellow U.N. Security Council members Wednesday to impose sanctions to push for change in Zimbabwe, where leaders cannot agree whether to even talk about how to resolve their crisis amid fears of worsening political violence.

AP - Hezbollah's leader on Wednesday confirmed for the first time that his group will hand over two captured Israeli soldiers and information on a missing Israeli airman in exchange for five Lebanese prisoners in Israel.

AP - French designer Jean Paul Gaultier conjured neon birds of paradise heading to a high-class rave in his feathered-and-caged haute couture collection in Paris on Wednesday.

AP - China's latest Olympics nightmare is a vast algae bloom that covers one-third of the sea where the world's best sailors are supposed to be competing in just over a month. Athletes call it the blob, the carpet, the fairway.

AP - Iraqi security forces arrested three locally prominent supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Wednesday as part of a crackdown on Shiite militias in the southern city of Amarah, police said.

AP - With Middle East tensions building, Iran's oil minister warned Wednesday that an attack on his country would provoke an unimaginably fierce response.

AP - Iran's foreign minister on Wednesday dismissed talk of a U.S. or Israeli attack against his country, calling the prospect of another war in the Middle East "craziness."

AP - A Palestinian man plowed an enormous construction vehicle into cars, buses and pedestrians on a busy street Wednesday, killing at least three people and wounding at least 45 before he was shot dead by security officers.

AFP - New laws to prevent people "annoying" Catholic pilgrims during Pope Benedict XVI's upcoming visit to Australia are likely to backfire and provoke both protesters and jesters, activists said Wednesday.

AP - South African President Thabo Mbeki says only Zimbabweans can resolve their crisis.

AP - Not long after two top commanders of Latin America's last major rebel army were killed — one in a raid, the other by a turncoat bodyguard — Diego Canizares decided to call it quits.

AP - Hezbollah instructors trained Shiite militiamen at remote camps in southern Iraq until three months ago when they slipped across the border to Iran — presumably to continue instruction on Iranian soil, according to two Shiite lawmakers and a top army officer.