AP - Mexican marines have arrested seven gunmen suspected of killing 72 Central and South American migrants in the worst drug cartel massacre to date, the government announced Wednesday.

AP - Israelis usher in the Jewish new year, or Rosh Hashana, at sundown Wednesday with a widespread sense of pessimism that a new round of U.S.-sponsored Mideast talks can achieve peace.

AP - Stocks resumed their rally Wednesday after a successful auction of Portuguese government debt eased worries about Europe's financial system.

AP - Fidel Castro told a visiting American journalist that Cuba's communist economic model doesn't work, a rare comment on domestic affairs from a man who has conspicuously steered clear of local issues since stepping down four years ago.

AP - A Muslim stonemason who spent nearly four decades helping to restore a Roman Catholic cathedral in France has been immortalized as a winged gargoyle peering out from its facade — with the inscription "God is great" written in French and Arabic.

AP - European Union nations and the continent's biggest human rights organization slammed Iran on Wednesday for its plan to stone a woman convicted of adultery, while Iran's ambassador to the Vatican said there is "hope" the punishment could be eased upon review by Iranian authorities.

AFP - Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has appointed new military, intelligence and police chiefs, his office said on Wednesday, ahead of January elections in the oil-rich country.

AP - A Danish cartoonist who caricatured the Prophet Muhammad and caused outrage in the Muslim world has received a German prize honoring his achievements for freedom of speech.

Time.com - In North Korea, the first congress in 30 years of the Workers' Party of Korea may be imminent, suggesting that a succession is being prepared to hand power from Kim Jong Il to his son Kim Jong Un

AP - The hidden face of the Emirates' economic crunch is in places such as Industrial Zone 18 and the ramshackle compound for about 700 migrant workers within. For more than six months, they have lived on charity, fought off rats and slept amid piles of trash after a construction company abruptly closed and left them jobless.

AP - A Romanian Gypsy leader on Wednesday compared French President Nicolas Sarkozy to Romania's pro-Nazi wartime leader, following the expulsion of hundreds of Gypsies from France.

AP - European Union nations and the continent's biggest human rights organization slammed Iran on Wednesday for its plans to stone a woman convicted of adultery, increasing the global pressure on Tehran over a case it has tried to frame as a criminal matter and not one of human rights.

AP - Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says the U.S. message to North Korea is the same, whoever leads the country: Give up your nuclear ambitions.

AP - Two leading activists in Swaziland were briefly detained Wednesday during a pro-democracy march in the capital of sub-Saharan Africa's last absolute monarchy, while supporters said a third leader also has been released.