AFP - Michael Schumacher and Sebastien Loeb, the two most successful drivers in their disciplines, are to go head-to-head in a gala race in London, according to the World Rally Championship website Wednesday.

AP - Chinese officials defended their decision to pass off the voice of a 7-year-old songbird as that of another girl at the Olympic opening ceremony, calling it a simple casting choice. Critics said it was a step too far in China's obsession with the perfect Olympic Games.

AP - A bomb ripped through a bus during Wednesday morning rush hour in a northern Lebanese city, killing 18 soldiers and civilians, security officials said, raising fears that an al-Qaida-inspired militant group is stepping up revenge attacks against the military.

AP - Taliban fighters with assault rifles shredded a U.S. aid group's SUV with dozens of bullets Wednesday, killing three Western women and their Afghan driver amid an escalating militant onslaught against humanitarian workers in Afghanistan.

AP - Russian troops and paramilitaries rolled into the strategic Georgian city of Gori on Wednesday, apparently violating a truce designed to end the conflict that has uprooted tens of thousands and scarred the Georgian landscape.

AP - Riots erupted across Indian-controlled Kashmir on Wednesday as Muslims mourned 15 people killed in a day of bloody violence, as the protests spread to other parts of India.

Reuters - Sudan's army has begun a massive operation to wipe out rebel bases in Darfur's far north, two Darfur rebel factions said on Wednesday.

AP - As of Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2008, at least 4,140 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

AP - A female suicide bomber blasted an Iraqi convoy north of Baghdad on Tuesday, killing two people but narrowly missing a provincial governor in the second suicide attack by a woman in Diyala province in as many days.

AP - A third day of talks over Zimbabwe's governance wound up on a conflicting note Tuesday amid reports that President Robert Mugabe and the leader of an opposition faction had reached a power-sharing agreement.

AP - A missile strike on a suspected militant training camp near the Afghan border killed at least nine people, Pakistani military and intelligence officials said Wednesday.