Bharti Airtel, an Indian company, paid $9 billion for access to an African cellphone market serving 45 million. The world's last unsaturated market holds a potentially huge payoff.

While $21 million in cellphone text-message donations poured into Haiti in the first 48 hours after the earthquake, only about $100,000 in total phone text donations have gone to Chile since the Feb. 27 earthquake.

When Sen. Jim Bunning lifted his block, the Senate approved a 30-day extension of federal unemployment benefits. More than 200,000 unemployed Americans were set to lose benefits, half of whom already had stopped receiving unemployment checks.

AP - President Barack Obama urged Congress Wednesday to vote "up or down" on sweeping health care legislation in the next few weeks, endorsing a plan that denies Senate Republicans the right to kill the bill by stalling with a filibuster.

AP - New York Rep. Charles Rangel temporarily stepped aside as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Wednesday as he struggled with mounting ethics woes that left his political future uncertain at best.

AP - With creditors demanding solutions to the Greek debt crisis and the financial world increasingly on edge, Athens on Wednesday froze pensions, cut civil service salaries and slapped new taxes on everything from cigarettes and alcohol to fuel and precious gems.