TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) — Gov. Rick Snyder signed a bill Wednesday that clears the way to schedule Michigan's first gray wolf hunting season since the resurgent predator, reviled by some as a menace to farm animals and beloved by others as a symbol of untamed wildness, was driven to the brink of extinction in the lower 48 states a half-century ago.

By Dave Warner PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Philadelphia jury ended its seventh day of deliberations on Wednesday without a verdict in the murder trial of a doctor accused of killing babies and a patient during late-term abortions at a clinic that served low-income women. Dr Kermit Gosnell, 72, who ran the now-closed Women's Medical Society Clinic, could face the death penalty if convicted by the jury in Common Pleas Court in Philadelphia. The seven-woman, five-man jury heard five weeks of testimony before starting deliberations on April 30. ...

As he stands in Times Square, tourists streaming past, Sgt. Ed Mullins of the New York Police Department points to vendors selling drinks and T-shirts out of plastic bins.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Seventy-two airport towers and other air traffic control facilities that were slated to close at night due to budget cuts will get to stay open, the Federal Aviation Administration said Wednesday.

By Jessica Dye NEW YORK (Reuters) - A former New York state senator from Queens secretly recorded seven lawmakers as part of a political corruption probe, according to a court document unsealed Wednesday. Shirley Huntley, 74, a Democrat who pleaded guilty in January to embezzling $87,700 from a nonprofit organization, recorded and photographed the officials on multiple occasions in the summer of 2012 after meeting with federal prosecutors and agents, according to the filing in Brooklyn federal court. ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation's slowly improving jobs picture hides problems like stagnant wages and fewer working hours that strike directly at President Barack Obama's base of support — young people, racial minorities and the less affluent.

LONDON (AP) — British physicist Stephen Hawking has dropped plans to attend a major international conference in Israel in June, citing his belief that he should respect a Palestinian call to boycott contacts with Israeli academics.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Maurice Taylor and Louis Bullock are eager to reconnect with Michigan.

VALLETTA (Reuters) - Malta's opposition Nationalist Party elected lawyer Simon Busuttil as its leader on Wednesday to succeed Lawrence Gonzi, who resigned after a heavy loss in a March 9 general election. Gonzi, who had been party leader and prime minister for nine years, had led the party to a narrow victory in 2008. Busuttil, 44, a member of the European Parliament until March when he resigned upon being elected to the Maltese parliament, has never held a government post. He was elected to the party leadership after defeating three other candidates, including two former ministers. ...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The future home of the San Francisco 49ers will be called Levi's Stadium.

NEW YORK (AP) — Nobody ever really stops Carmelo Anthony. Not in his mind, anyway.

By Karl Plume CHICAGO (Reuters) - Barge shipping returned to normal this week on most of the Illinois River after spring floods, but lock repairs will halt navigation on a northern stretch for at least a week beginning on Friday, the Army Corps of Engineers and Coast Guard said. Marseilles Lock and Dam near Seneca, Illinois, was critically damaged when seven barges broke loose from a tow on April 18, tearing 20-foot (6-meter) holes in two of the dam's gates. ...

KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - Three suicide bombers attacked Kurdish security forces and the local headquarters of a Kurdish political party in a disputed oil-rich area of northern Iraq on Wednesday, killing three people, police and medics said. The attacks took place in a band of territory over which both the central government in Baghdad and the Kurds, who run their own administration in the north and are selling oil in defiance of Baghdad, claim jurisdiction. At the heart of the dispute is the ethnically mixed oil city of Kirkuk, 250 km (155 miles) north of Baghdad. ...

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Adam Scott never had to take this much time walking from the clubhouse to the practice range at TPC Sawgrass.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate rejected an effort Wednesday to expand the use of firearms on some of the nation's most frequently visited federal lands, handing gun control advocates a modest success.

PHOENIX (AP) — A jury of eight men and four women has found Jodi Arias guilty of first degree-murder. Jurors had several options as they considered four months of testimony and evidence in the case: first-degree murder, second-degree murder, manslaughter or acquittal.

By Kim Palmer and Kevin Gray CLEVELAND (Reuters) - Cleveland resident Ariel Castro was charged on Wednesday with kidnapping and raping three women who were rescued from his house on Monday after nearly a decade in captivity. Castro's two brothers Pedro and Onil, originally arrested in the case, were not charged, said Cleveland city prosecutor Victor Perez at a news conference. ...

ANTHONY, N.M. (AP) — Twenty-two people were arrested on drug trafficking and other charges Wednesday during an early morning border town roundup that woke residents with the sounds of helicopters, bangs and screaming.

LONDON (AP) — Germany's Thomas Bach is set to become the first member to declare he is a candidate to succeed Jacques Rogge as president of the International Olympic Committee.

Calls to change how the US military justice system prosecutes those accused of sexual assault grew increasingly robust as lawmakers vowed to create a minimum punishment for US troops convicted of the crime.