AP - A jetliner heading to the popular Canary Islands vacation resort crashed during takeoff Wednesday, turning a wooded area off the end of a runway into a hellish scene of charred bodies and smoldering wreckage. Some 153 were believed dead — Spain's worst air disaster in nearly 25 years.

AP - The United States and Poland signed a deal Wednesday to place a U.S. missile defense base just 115 miles from Russia — a move followed swiftly by a new warning from Moscow of a possible military response.

AP - Russian forces dug trenches and built sentry posts deep inside Georgia on Wednesday, showing few signs they would pull back later this week as promised.

AP - Iraqi and U.S. negotiators have completed a draft security agreement that would see American troops leave Iraqi cities as soon as June 30, Iraqi and American officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

AP - Two elderly Chinese women who applied to hold a protest during the Olympics were ordered to spend a year in a labor camp, a relative said Wednesday. Police later squelched a pro-Tibet demonstration.

AP - Top Sunni politicians on Wednesday accused Iraq's Shiite-dominated security forces of carrying out political arrests, and warned that this could push Iraq into another round of sectarian fighting.

AP - A former senator close to President Alvaro Uribe was freed from prison on Wednesday, four months after his arrest on charges of colluding with far-right death squads.

AFP - Security gains made in southern Afghanistan could suffer if US Marines are pulled out later this year without replacements, the head of the Marine Corps has warned.