Tourists going home
Five Italian tourists killed in the air collision over the Hudson River were taken in five hearses to Kennedy Airport for their final trip home Wednesday as divers recovered 30 pieces of the helicopter they were riding in from the river.
Gay rights group waits
One of California’s largest and most influential gay rights groups says it prefers to wait until the 2012 election to ask voters to repeal the state’s same-sex marriage ban.
Storming in
Helicopter-borne U.S. Marines backed by Harrier jets stormed the Taliban-held town of Dahaneh, Afghanistan, on Wednesday, the launch of an operation to uproot Taliban fighters and provide security for next week’s presidential election.
Quake injuries
Nearly half of the people hurt in a major earthquake that struck Japan on Tuesday morning were hit by furniture, large-screen TV sets or other large objects that were violently shaken in the quake, officials in Shizuoka said.
Swine flu in Iraq
There have been 67 confirmed cases of swine flu among American troops in Iraq with dozens more suspected, Iraqi officials said Wednesday in Baghdad, making U.S. soldiers the single largest group in the country to come down with the virus.
‘Deep change’
Iran’s top opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, called Wednesday for a “deep change” in the country, in one of the most forceful calls to date for a major reform of the country’s political system.
