AP - Colleen LaRose spent long days caring for her boyfriend's father in a second-floor apartment in Pennsburg, a small town north of Philadelphia.

AP - Democrats claimed momentum Wednesday in their drive to enact the sweeping health care legislation sought by President Barack Obama, citing near agreement on crucial issues despite persistent Republican efforts to knock them offstride.

Reuters - Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim is the world's richest person, knocking Microsoft founder Bill Gates into second spot, as the wealth of the world's billionaires grew by 50 percent over the last year, Forbes magazine said on Wednesday.

AP - Church abuse scandals in Germany have reached the older brother of Pope Benedict XVI and are creeping ever closer to the pontiff himself.

AP - Corey Haim, a 1980s teen heartthrob whose career was blighted by drug abuse, has died. He was 38. Haim died early Wednesday at Providence St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank, Los Angeles County coroner's Lt. Cheryl MacWillie said.