The Minnesota shutdown ended Wednesday after the Democratic governor and Republican Legislature came to a budget deal. But neither side was declaring victory.

New York will offer free land and up to $100 million in infrastructure funds to a university willing to establish a world-class, high-tech school in the city, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Tuesday.

The man who shot three men he believed were Arabs, as revenge for 9/11, faces execution in Texas Wednesday – despite pleas for clemency from the one survivor and the change of heart the convict blogged to the world from death row.

AP - Running out of time, President Barack Obama softened his stand and signaled Wednesday he would back a short-term deal to prevent a disastrous financial default on Aug. 2, but only if a larger and still elusive deficit-cutting agreement was essentially in place. He called lawmakers to the White House in a scramble to find enough votes from both Republicans and his own party.

AP - Prime Minister David Cameron dragged his political foes into Britain's phone-hacking scandal at a raucous session of Parliament on Wednesday, distancing himself from a former aide at the heart of the allegations and denying his staff tried to thwart police investigations.