AP - The Olympic flame approached the final destination of its long and sometimes contentious global tour Wednesday, greeted by rapturous crowds in the Chinese capital two days before it officially launches the Summer Games.

AP - Police led away four activists from the U.S. and U.K. on Wednesday after they unfurled pro-Tibet banners outside Beijing's National Stadium, the site of the Olympic Games' opening ceremony later this week.

AP - The last survivor of the deadliest mountaineering disaster ever to hit the world's second-highest peak was rescued by helicopter Wednesday, nearly five days after the tragedy, a Pakistani army spokesman said.

AP - President Bush offered poverty-wracked North Korea hope Wednesday that it could share in South Korea's economic prosperity, while warning that it first must take concrete steps to live up to a promise to end its nuclear weapons program.

AFP - Clearing natural forests in Australia would pose a greater danger to the global climate than previously thought because they hold three times as much carbon as estimated, a report released Tuesday said.

AFP - A Pakistani neuroscientist and mother of three, who is accused of Al-Qaeda links and shooting at US officers in Afghanistan, was due to face a New York court Tuesday in a case sparking protests in her homeland.

AFP - An early Beatles tape which captures John Lennon and Paul McCartney cracking jokes in a recording studio sold at auction in Britain for 9,800 pounds (12,400 euros, 19,000 dollars) on Tuesday.

AP - The last survivor of the deadliest mountaineering disaster to hit K2 limped into base camp with frostbitten feet Tuesday, but thick clouds threatened to keep him on the mountain for at least another night.

AP - The beating of two Japanese journalists by police in western China drew an official apology Tuesday, but Beijing also set new obstacles for news outlets wanting to report from Tiananmen Square in the latest sign of trouble for reporters covering the Olympics.

AP - Blood was washed off the road. Debris was cleared away. And authorities said peace had been restored Tuesday in China's restive Muslim region where 16 police were killed in an attack that may have been timed to overshadow Olympic celebrations.

AP - Iran responded to incentives aimed at defusing a dispute over the country's nuclear program on Tuesday, the State Department and an EU diplomat said, adding that the response will now be studied by the six nations that devised the package.