Yahoo! News: Top Stories
Top Stories

Fiery charges: Romney, Santorum assail each other (AP)
AP - Primed for a fight, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum traded fiery accusations about health care, spending earmarks and federal bailouts Wednesday night in the 20th and possibly final debate of the roller-coaster race for the Republican presidential nomination.

Poll: Obama benefitting from improving economy (AP)
AP - President Barack Obama is reaping political benefits from the country's brighter economic mood. A new poll shows that Republicans and Democrats alike are increasingly saying the nation is heading in the right direction and most independents now approve the way he's addressing the nation's post-recession period.

Shelling kills 2 Western journalists in Syria (AP)
AP - Syrian gunners pounded an opposition stronghold where the last dispatches from a veteran American-born war correspondent chronicled the suffering of civilians caught in the relentless shelling. An intense morning barrage killed her and a French photojournalist — two of 74 deaths reported Wednesday in Syria.

Newark mayor: NYPD Muslim files 'deeply offensive' (AP)

AP - The mayor and police director of New Jersey's largest city said Wednesday the New York Police Department misled their city and never told them it was conducting a widespread spying operation on Newark's Muslim neighborhoods. Had they known, they said, they never would have allowed it.

Jury: 26 years total for former U.Va. lax player (AP)
AP - A jury convicted a former University of Virginia lacrosse player Wednesday of second-degree murder of his ex-girlfriend in a drunken, jealous rage, rejecting a first-degree murder verdict and a possible life sentence.

FACT CHECK: Errant claims on auto bailout, taxes (AP)
AP - Twenty Republican presidential debates later, the head-scratching claims kept coming.

Police charge 2 in death of Ala girl forced to run (AP)
AP - At a doublewide trailer along a dirt road in rural Alabama, authorities say 9-year-old Savannah Hardin was forced to run for three hours as punishment for having lied to her grandmother about eating candy bars. The severely dehydrated girl had a seizure and her death days later was ruled a homicide.

Teenage girl dies after inhaling helium at party (AP)
AP - Last weekend, 14-year-old Ashley Long told her parents she was going to a slumber party. But instead of spending the night watching videos and eating popcorn two blocks away, she piled into a car with a bunch of her friends and rode to a condo in Medford, Ore., where police say the big sister of one of her friends was throwing a party with booze and marijuana.

Cowell: 'X Factor' wants 2 female judges, 2 hosts (AP)
AP - Simon Cowell is playing it coy about rumors that Fergie, Britney Spears and Janet Jackson are being considered for "The X Factor."

Man's childhood comic collection fetches $3.5M (AP)

AP - Billy Wright plunked down dime after dime for comic books while growing up in the late 1930s and early 1940s, caring for the collection he started around the age of 9 until his death more than half a century later. On Wednesday, most of that collection sold for a whopping $3.5 million.

Santorum takes heavy fire in Arizona Republican debate (Reuters)

Reuters - Rivals piled criticism on presidential candidate Rick Santorum at a testy debate on Wednesday, attempting to blunt his surprise surge at a pivotal period in the Republican race.

Obama urges corporate tax cut, closing loopholes (Reuters)

Reuters - President Barack Obama made an opening offer in what could be a long negotiation with corporate America on Wednesday, putting forward his first detailed plan to cut the corporate tax rate.

Assad forces renew barrage on Syria's Homs (Reuters)
Reuters - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces rained rockets and bombs down on opposition-held neighborhoods of the city of Homs, reducing buildings to rubble and killing more than 80 people, including two Western journalists.

Fitch downgrades Greece on debt swap plan (Reuters)
Reuters - Fitch cut Greece's long-term ratings on Wednesday to its lowest rating above a default, becoming the first ratings agency to make the widely expected downgrade after the country announced a bond exchange plan to ease its massive debt burden.

Congress members threatened with biological attack (Reuters)
Reuters - Several members of the Congress received mail threatening a biological attack and containing a suspicious powder later found to be harmless as law enforcement officials warned on Wednesday that more letters could be on their way.