US Airways dropped its hostile $9.8 billion bid for Delta on Wednesday after Delta's creditors threw their support behind the airline's plan to emerge from bankruptcy on its own. Delta Air Lines Inc.'s official unsecured creditors committee said in a statement it reached its decision after a lengthy review of both Delta's proposal and US Airways Group Inc.'s proposal.
Counterterrorism police arrested nine men in an alleged kidnapping plot Wednesday -- a plan that reportedly involved torturing and beheading a British Muslim soldier and broadcasting the killing on the Internet. The kidnapping plot was the first of its kind to be uncovered in Britain, according to counterterrorism officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.
Stocks shot higher Wednesday, sending the Dow Jones industrials up by triple digits after the Federal Reserve answered two of Wall Street's major concerns, indicating that the economy remains healthy and that inflation pressures are easing. In midafternoon trading, the Dow was up 116.08, or 0.93 percent, at 12,639.39.
Researchers have halted two studies of an anti-AIDS vaginal gel in Africa and India after early results suggested it might raise the risk of HIV infection instead of lowering it. It was "a disappointing and unexpected setback" to efforts to get a simple tool to protect women from the risk of AIDS through sex, the World Health Organization said.
A fifth person injured in a West Virginia propane blast died Wednesday, a day after the explosion destroyed a convenience store. State Fire Marshall Sterling Lewis identified the victim as the manager of the Flat Top Little General Store. All that remained of the business was a pile of splintered debris, twisted metal and a sign showing the price of gasoline.
The U.S. botched training Iraqi police by assigning the wrong agencies to the task, two members of the Iraq Study Group said Wednesday. Training the police is as important to stabilizing Iraq as building an effective army there, they said. The police training system has not gone well, said former Rep. Lee Hamilton, who co-chaired the bipartisan commission.
Five suspicious packages planted near bridges and other spots around Boston forced the shutdown of major roads, a bridge and a stretch of the Charles River on Wednesday before authorities concluded the objects were not bombs.
