AP - Conservationists in Zimbabwe say round-the-clock efforts to save a baby elephant have failed. The six-week-old calf, who was separated from his mother on a busy highway and hand fed for three weeks, has died, apparently from pneumonia.

AP - Egypt's military-backed prime minister says Cairo will not halt its crackdown on foreign nonprofit groups despite what he calls threats to cut off aid from Western and Arab countries.

AP - Japan and the United States agreed Wednesday to proceed with plans to transfer thousands of U.S. troops out of the southern Japanese island of Okinawa, leaving behind the stalled discussion about closing a major U.S. Marine base there.

Reuters - Stocks edged higher on Wednesday as hopeful investors awaited the latest attempt by Greece to reach a deal on reforms in exchange for a new bailout.

Reuters - More evidence emerged on Tuesday of the crippling impact of new sanctions on Iran, with international traders saying Tehran is having trouble buying rice, cooking oil and other staples to feed its 74 million people weeks before an election.

AP - The Mexican navy says a suspected member of the Zetas drug gang has led authorities to a mass grave site at two ranches in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz.

AP - Move over, coffee and Red Bull. A Harvard professor thinks the next big thing will be people inhaling their caffeine from a lipstick-sized tube. Critics say the novel product is not without its risks.

AP - A central Missouri teenager who confessed to strangling, cutting and stabbing a 9-year-old girl because she wanted to know how it felt to kill someone was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison with the possibility of parole.

AP - The European Union will impose harsher sanctions on Syria, a senior EU official said Wednesday, as Russia tried to broker talks between the vice president and the opposition to calm violence. Activists reported at least 50 killed in military assaults targeting government opponents.

Reuters - Yahoo Inc Chairman Roy Bostock and three other directors will step down as the struggling company ploughs ahead with an internal overhaul, including discussions on dealing with its stakes in China's Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan.

AP - Republican Rick Santorum is looking to capitalize on a string of stunning victories that snapped his four-state losing streak and raised new questions about front-runner Mitt Romney's clout with conservatives.

Reuters - The ousted president of the Maldives, credited with bringing democracy to the Indian Ocean island resort, said on Wednesday he was forced out of power at gunpoint, prompting clashes between police and angry supporters.

AP - Mitt Romney just can't shake his difficulty attracting conservatives. And that reality is undercutting his effort to cast himself as the inevitable Republican presidential nominee and prolonging a race that each day exposes deep divisions within the party.

Reuters - An appeals court on Tuesday found California's gay marriage ban unconstitutional in a case that may lead to a showdown in the Supreme Court.

AP - The United States appears to be out of answers on what to do with Syria.

AP - Conservative critics like to point out that the federal appeals court that just declared California's same-sex marriage ban to be unconstitutional has its decisions overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court more often than other judicial circuits, a record that could prove predictive if the high court agrees to review the gay marriage case on appeal.

AP - Shot through the upper back on a rooftop in Afghanistan and gasping for breath after a bullet ripped through his chest, Marine Sgt. Ben Tomlinson had a fear worse than death.

AP - Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney shifted his focus from the economy to abortion, religious freedom and gay marriage in recent days, part of an intensified effort to win over social conservatives in states voting Tuesday.