BERLIN (AP) - Summoning the harsh history of this once-divided city, President Barack Obama on Wednesday cautioned the U.S. and Europe against "complacency" brought on by peace, pledging to cut America's deployed nuclear weapons by one-third if Cold War foe Russia does the same. The president also declared that his far-reaching surveillance programs had saved lives on both sides of the Atlantic, as he sought to defend the controversial data-mining to skeptical Europeans.
OAKLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) - The excavation of a field in suburban Detroit has failed to turn up the remains of former Teamsters union leader Jimmy Hoffa, the FBI announced Wednesday, adding another unsuccessful chapter to a nearly 40-year-old mystery. Authorities stopped the dig after just a few hours on the third day.
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Hopes dimmed for talks aimed at ending the Afghan war when an angry President Hamid Karzai on Wednesday suspended security negotiations with the U.S. and scuttled a peace delegation to the Taliban, sending American officials scrambling to preserve the possibility of dialogue with the militants. What provoked the mercurial Karzai and infuriated many other Afghans was a move by the Taliban to cast their new office in the Gulf nation of Qatar as a rival embassy. The Taliban held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday in which they hoisted their flag and a banner with the name they used while in power more than a decade ago: "Political Office of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan."
WASHINGTON (AP) - Illegal immigration into the United States would decrease by only 25 percent under a far-reaching Senate immigration bill, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office that also finds the measure reduces federal deficits by billions. Supporters of the legislation moving toward a vote on the Senate floor seized on the deficit-reduction findings by Congress' nonpartisan scorekeeping agency, along with the agency's forecast that the immigration measure would boost economic growth as millions of workers join the workforce and begin to pay taxes.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Chairman Ben Bernanke ended weeks of speculation Wednesday by saying the Federal Reserve will likely slow its bond-buying program later this year and end it next year if the economy continues to improve. The Fed's bond purchases have helped keep long-term interest rates at record lows.
SAO PAULO (AP) - Scattered street demonstrations popped up around Brazil Wednesday as protesters continued their collective cry against the low-quality public services they receive in exchange for high taxes and rising prices. In one of several protests, about 200 people blocked the Anchieta Highway that links Sao Paulo, the country's biggest city, and the port of Santos before heading to the industrial suburb of Sao Bernardo do Campo on Sao Paulo's outskirts. Another group of protesters later obstructed the highway again.
STOCKHOLM (AP) - A WikiLeaks spokesman who claims to represent Edward Snowden has reached out to government officials in Iceland about the potential of the NSA leaker applying for asylum in the Nordic country, officials there said Wednesday. Johannes Skulason, an Icelandic government official, told The Associated Press that WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson had held informal talks with assistants at the Interior Ministry and the prime minister's office.
NEW YORK (AP) - Men's Wearhouse doesn't like the way its founder looks anymore. The men's clothier said Wednesday that it has fired the face of the company and its executive chairman, George Zimmer, 64, who appeared in many of its TV commercials with the slogan "You're going to like the way you look. I guarantee it."
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Seems Warner Bros. has taken movie marketing to a whole new level - even higher than a bird or a plane. The studio enlisted Christian-focused firm Grace Hill Media to promote "Man of Steel" to faith-based groups by inviting them to early screenings and creating trailers that highlight the film's religious themes. They also enlisted Craig Detweiler, a Pepperdine University professor and author of "Into the Dark: Seeing the Sacred in the Top Films of the 21st Century," to create a Superman-centric sermon outline for pastors titled "Jesus: The Original Superhero."
NORTH ATTLEBOROUGH, Mass. (AP) - State police returned to the home of New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez on Wednesday, two days after a body was found about a mile away. Two troopers knocked on the door of Hernandez's sprawling house in an upscale subdivision Wednesday morning, but no one answered. The night before, police spent hours there as another group of officers searched an industrial park where the body was found Monday. No more details about the body have been released.
